The Bucket List Hypothesis
by famousindafuture
Summary: Raj and Amy decide to make a bucket list to get their minds off of their heartbreak. Through makeovers, pole dancing lessons, new academic pursuits, and friendship they find the pieces they lost throughout the way. How will Sheldon respond to a confident Amy? SHAMY. And Amy/Raj friendship. Sheldon is back in chapter 11!
1. The Alcohol Induced Beginning

**I am looking for a beta. Someone to be very mean and honest with me. I know I am not a very good writer, but these plot bunnies come into my head and I just have to write them. This would be so much easier if I could just give dialogue and situations to someone else and they could write it as I see it in my brain. Haha anways, this should be a short story. After watching the episode where Raj stays with Bernadette and Howard I couldn't help but be charmed at how sweet and helpful he can be. Also I honestly feel like on the show, he was reaching out to Amy recently but Amy was too stressed to really connect with him. I wanted that sweet side used to help Amy through Sheldon leaving, and Amy's understanding of the brain and eventually Raj, to help him ultimately as well. **

When Raj showed up on Amy's doorstep with the ingredients to make margaritas and proclaimed that the two of them were going to get "fancy" Amy couldn't come up with a single reason that she shouldn't let him in the door. There were plenty; she had earlier that week sent a termination email to Sheldon - thus social protocols dictated she should abstain from having social calls with his designated friends. There was the fact that she had been crying all day and was no mood in the company. There was the fact she had no idea what fancy meant and there was a small probability he was going to dress her up and then try to market her as an Indian Bride on the internet. And then there was the simple truth that Raj, when drunk, was an ass. But Amy's mind clearly wasn't up to its typical alertness, for her door opened and her small Indian friend bounced his way through her doorframe.

Where he had been for one hour, thirty seven minutes. In that time they had consumed seven and a half margaritas between the two of them, listened to four songs that Amy had never heard (one of which used the word fancy in the context Raj was referencing), and exchanged six stories of Raj explaining his heartbreak over Emily.

Statistically it wasn't surprising that the relationship came to an end. The things they had in common were few and in between, their end goals weren't mutually satisfactory, the odds of a ginger and an Indian man making it work made it culturally unlikely (red hair being a dominant trait, their children would be a hereditary anomaly), and their sex life was unsatisfactory.

"I just don't understand. I mean I get people have weird turn ons, Howard has always wanted to have sex on a stove that it is on for the fear, that he MIGHT get burned if he reaches too far back. But really you want me to lie there pretending to be dead while you ravage my corpse? Yet when I tried to suggest that we instead played out the scene from Titantic, she brought out the whip."

Normal Amy would have nodded and tried to end the conversation there. Normal Amy would have tried to shut him down with generic advice to meet on mutual ground, or for him to try again with Emily. But Normal Amy was long gone after the strawberry margaritas. Normal Amy might disappeared somewhere while writing business transaction of heartbreak. Normal Amy might have even left long before that. So instead of trying to quickly push Raj to solve his own problems so she could worry about her own, Abnormal Amy took over.

"Do you think you made a mistake by ending it?"

Raj seemed surprised to be asked that question. And based on her experience with the group, he probably hadn't been asked that question at all.

"Honestly no." Raj was criss cross on the ground in front of her couch, facing up at where she sat on the couch, a empty margarita cup still in his hand. "I know the group thinks I will never find anyone better."

"But do you think that?"

He passed the margarita glass in between both hands a couple of times, running his fingers over the glass to see if it let fingerprints. "She's beautiful, yes. Like my very own Amy Pond. And she's nice. But….. but just because I had her, didn't mean I was happy."

"Explain."

"At first it was cute when she talked about cutting peoples faces off, and being sexually turned on by people who sawed phones out of other peoples bellies. It was cute because she had something mentally wrong with her, and I like that. It kept us on even playing ground." He put the glass on the side of the couch away from him.

"So what changed?"

"I was trying to like her in spite of that. I tried to get around that in my head. I told myself 'Nah dude she will grow out of this because she is your perfect woman' and apparently she thought one day she would be able to turn on the tv and I would not watch when there is a Sandra Bullock movie on. As if. It's Sandra Freaking Bullock."

"So you are saying you had things you didn't like about each other. So what? Every couple has that."

"No it's more than that." Raj tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling like there was a problem on the walls he was trying to calculate in his head. "I am going to be someones perfect man because I like tender sensitive movies about kick ass ladies. And she values that part of herself that craves dominance and submission. She wants…. No she deserves to be loved by someone who values the parts of her she values most." He shook his head and laid down on the ground. "I don't know this is getting too deep for me Amy and the margaritas are still swirling around in my brain and stomach. "

"Do you think she made you happy?"

"The idea of her did. Anyways I came here to cheer you up."

"Me?"

"I heard about the break up letter."

"Based on the groups gossip trajectory and Penny's ability to spread news faster than herpes that doesn't surprise me."

"Are you okay?"

"Did you know a majority of people believe that okay originated as a word because of Martin Van Buren but really it can trace further back to Chackataw Indians?"

"Ah the other kind of Indian."

"Yes the kind that don't get drunk on my floor and attempt to teach me how to dougie. Speaking of which, that sentence is grammatically incorrect. The prepositional phrase-"

"Are you happy?" The question hung in the air like a bad smell.

"Happy about the phrasing of an uneducated rapper with an agenda to be taught how inhabit someone else?"

"No. Like with life."

Normal Amy would have avoided Raj's pleading eyes, and answered positively. Or Normal Amy would have made some joke of the question itself. Hell, Normal Amy, would have simply asserted that Raj was too drunk to be waxing philosophical about life. But instead Amy shrugged. It was a telling gesture, but her shoulders felt heavy admitting a truth she hadn't wanted to look at for a long time. When she looked over and saw Raj laying on the ground, presumably counting the amount of holes in her evenly leveled ceiling, she knew he didn't expect an answer. He instead played with the zipper on his purple coat pondering the question for himself.

Amy took the opportunity to lay on her stomach on her couch and look at the ground below them. She marveled that it wasn't spinning with how mentally wasted she felt.

"Mindy Kaling lies like this to find answers to her problems." Amy looked at Raj's face and saw he was looking up at her from the floor.

"I don't know who that is."

"She's my type of Indian. She also probably knows how to Dougie."


	2. The Friendship Establishment

**HEY ALL! THE COMMENTS MADE MY LIFE! I love you guys. Still looking for a beta, so let me know if you know anyone. Oh and next chapter will include the actual bucket list. Reviews make me happy and write faster. Also- I don't own anything. Which you should already know. Criticism helps too. **

"We are going to Pretty Woman you!"

Amy was flabbergasted to see Raj on her doorstep. He should have been at pizza night surrounded by the rest of his friends. Granted Sheldon was gone, but Amy had just assumed the group had continued on in their rituals in his absence. It was a fact that if someone did something repeatedly for six weeks it became a habit, and they were 358 weeks past the point where it should have been second nature, with or without Sheldon there to enforce it.

"No." She watched as his face fell. "One- I am not a prostitute, and two I don't need expensive clothes to mend my troubles of the heart. Third, and finally, I am not a white lab mouse to experiment on. Giving me a makeover will not increase my self worth. "

"How do you know?" When he realized she wasn't flat right rejecting him, Raj seemed less put out, and even walked around her to enter her apartment. She didn't invite him in, but she also didn't find the familiarity off putting.

"Because I like the way I look." His head whipped around to look at her and his eyes flashed in disbelief. She didn't have the heart to even attempt to read into that. "I'm never going to be another Penny. The world can only have one goddess built from the Gods, but also I don't want to subscribe into the idea that changing my looks will somehow make my brain more appealing to others."

"I've seen you let Penny and Bernadette put makeup on you."

"Yes, that is a female bonding activity." She thought back to the last girl's night she had partaken in. Penny had brought out her expansive makeup kit, all of the eye shadows broken in their containers and spilling everywhere within the silver box she kept them. She had started applying makeup to Amy, but got distracted both by alcohol and stray glitter. By the end of the night she was snoring on her couch in a drunken state. Bernadette had spent the beginning examining each lip color before applying each shade on her hand in a calculating line. By the end of it her lips were a dark purple as she detailed her latest confrontation with Howards mother. And suddenly Amy felt a pang of longing. "Also, I wanted to see if there was a way to rouge my lips without looking like a lady of the night."

"Was there?"

"Not in our experiment."

"But how is that different? It sounds like, my sweater loving Madonna, that you are deciding only to don yourself with layers because you want to prove that you are smart and not sexual. Be both." He made it sound so easy.

"I don't want to change myself to attract men."

"Who said anything about attracting men? Or changing yourself?"

"Changing ones looks is, by definition, changing themselves."

"So you believe that people are what they wear? You believe that Bernadette is a small doll that doesn't fit right into the human world? That Sheldon is a comic book character who wants to flaunt it to the world? And Howard is the head of a penis being stuffed into a large snug hot dog of clothing. Well I guess that one might be actually correct. What do you think your clothes tell me about you?"

Amy looked down at her black tights, green long skirt, cream colored top with orange flowers and her comfortable favorite brown sweater she had gotten from her aunt Glinda. Sure it wasn't tight fitting or seductive but it was warm and comfortable. It kept her cozy in her 67 degree apartment, it was easy to bunch when she was nervous, and it made her felt protected. But she could see his point. If people judged her based on her clothing, what would they see? Would they see the fraying in her sweater where she had pulled at it at her doctors office? Would they see the way her shoes kept her ankles in place and strengthened them? Would they see the creases in her sleeves where she had rolled them up to dissect the monkeys brains? Or would they just see a girl who didn't dress like other girls? Would that be a beneficial or at the end of the day would it make her feel more uncomfortable in the long run? She would have to read more feminist lectures, build a stronger argument, and address it later when she more informed. Until then…."No Pretty Women."

"Okay, okay" Raj said smiling at her. He was sitting on her couch, and she was making him tea. The weeks without Sheldon hadn't broken her completely out of old habits.

"Besides, why the sudden inspiration to make me over? I know you are lonely, but surely there are cheaper things to do than try to make a prostitute out of your good friends ex."

"I just wanted to have a movie moment where I helped someone else and karma rewarded me. It worked for Cher in clueless. Besides, you aren't just Sheldon's ex. You are my friend as well." The way he said it was so casually Amy couldn't help but question his motives. It wasn't very common Amy had friends that just admitted it, without her having to guilt them into it.

"I feel it important to inform you that this will not be one of those quote unquote friends with benefits situations just because of our new found singlehood."

"Relax Amy I don't want to get into your pants. My pants are quite used to being empty."

"Then I must admit I am confused by this sudden desire to have bonding activities together."

"Were we only friends because of Sheldon?" The way he was looking at her, as if genuinely concerned she might say yes baffled her even more.

"Well if Sheldon hadn't-" She started but he interrupted her.

"No I mean were you only nice to me, Howard, Bernadette, Leonard, and Penny because you were dating Sheldon?"

"No I didn't have to be nice to you guys in order to further my relationship with Sheldon. He made it very clear he didn't care how I treated you."

"See!"

"But you are HIS friends first, mine by default."

"And yet you are the one who attempted to help me with Emily when I first met her, you are the one who reached out to Lucy to make her feel included, you are the one who gave me books about neuroscience to try to help cure my mute days, you are the one who giggled with me about the nature of the Kama Sutra when I was crying about Emily, and you are the one who is about to get wasted with me tonight. That's not a default friendship darling."

"But what happens when Sheldon gets back…."

"Then he can suck my little brown ass if he has a problem with our friendship." It sounded highly unsanitary to Amy but she appreciated the sentiment. She couldn't help but smile at the image it presented. "You know what sounds really good right now? Chili's fajitas. I don't know what it is about fake Mexican food but it just fulfills me in a way I didn't even know was possible." Amy hadn't had friends a long time, but she knew the sentence, mixed with his pushing her out the door wasn't just a fond sentiment of Chilli's fajitas but an implication of where the evening would lead them. And she let herself go with it.

Somehow Raj had a talent of finding alcohol. Maybe it was because of his many years of abusing it as a crutch to get laid, but regardless Amy was certain if he needed to- Raj could make alcohol on the spot. Like a little Smurnoff genie.

The night had progressed back to her apartment where Raj had decided it was his responsibility to make up for "The turbulence of youth" as he said. She didn't know why it was surprising to him that she didn't know a lot of pop culture from her youth. Her days at school were spent trying to memorize all the applications of wavelets, while avoiding the girls in the hall who "bra checked" her every day. ( A process of taunting, and tapping ones boob to see if any fake padding came out). Her busy schedule didn't leave much room for educating herself on the new and happening things, and apparently Raj didn't think it was something she could just move past.

What had started as watching the aforementioned Cher in Clueless, turned into loud music blaring through all surfaces of her apartment. Amy was sure that even the stripper next door would send in a gramtically incorrect complaint to their building manager the next morning. And while Amy still didn't understand why Britney Spears wanted a man who hit her, or what Backstreet Boys wanted in a particular way she did have to admit she found the music catchy, and it's sexual overtones intriguing. She even humored Raj in dancing around the apartment with him when his "hips just couldn't be stopped." Granted she didn't gyrate on her couch as openly as he did, but she definitely allowed herself a couple of hip thrusts and jazz hands when the song called for it. But hours later the person in 214 threatened that they cease or he would administer a form of a rectal exam, Raj's hips had tired themselves out, and the alcohol in their systems had been replaced with fatigue.

"Does awesome have two s's in it or three?" Raj was back on the floor in front of her couch. Amy wasn't sure if it was because he was attempting to put distance between them, he dropped it too low and couldn't get up, or he was so used to sitting on the ground with the other group he gravitated towards it naturally- yet regardless he was there, while she lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows looking at him.

"It only has one s."

"Because tonight was awesssssssssssome." He beamed brightly up at her, and she didn't care that the joke was lame, his smile made her beam back.

"I honestly think this has been one of the best nights recently as well. All it was missing were some other girls to make it a standard dance party."

He nodded and laid down on the ground. "We've missed you at Girl's Night."

Girls Night. Another thing social rules dictated she abstain from. Still it didn't mean she didn't miss both her golden angels of sensuality.

"I've missed you the most though." When she looked at him in confusion he sat back up again. "Not like that. I just mean, Bernadette and Penny are both so happy about their relationships. I miss having you there."

"I was happy in a relationship." Even she could tell her tone sounded defensive.

"No, no, I know. I'm just saying. When you were there, you talked about scientific achievements with Bernadette, and would always ask me about my reading groups romance novel of the week. That way there was more than one conversation then what colors Penny is going to choose, or whether or not she wants to do it doggy style on her honeymoon night." She looked at him expectantly. "No, she is thinking that missionary is more romantically suited for her and Leonard's big night" He answered quickly and Amy nodded out of relief for her Bestie.

"I doubt the social circle is that off without me."

"To be honest it's off without both you and Sheldon, but no I'm serious. I think the main thing that sucks most about girls night is the fact that we spend half the time talking about how happy everyone is, and the other half talking about how much we miss you, speculate on how you are doing, and whether you would love it or hate it if Penny and Bernadette barged in your apartment with some virus Bernadette is working on and forced you to hang out with them or else they will contaminate the whole world."

"I guess I can try to reach out more. I don't know this whole thing is so weird." Amy confessed. "I've never had a boyfriend before, let alone an ex boyfriend. Make that an ex boyfriend who has disappeared leaving me both hanging in the relationship department and in a lurch in the friendship department as well."

"If it makes you feel any better, you had a Sheldon. And no one, even you Amy, knows exactly what to do with a Sheldon." And both them sat there in silence.

That had always been a running jibe between the two of them, him pointing out Sheldon's indifference and her pointing out Raj's singledom. But now instead of using it as a comeback or a joke, they were having to face the truth behind the teasing. Sheldon was indifferent, especially towards Amy at the end of it and Raj was alone, yet again. They both were alone. The two people in the group who utterly knew and feared being alone.

"Do you think we will ever find happiness?"

Amy allowed herself to turn around on the couch and lay on her back. "What is happiness?" She countered philosophically.

"Bringing a banging hot Indian chick back home to my mansion in India."

"Showering with another person who isn't just trying to get radioactive substances off of me."

"Reading a romance novel without thinking that imaginary people are just so much easier to deal with."

"Bringing a fiancé home to meet the parents and proving I didn't build him from monkey genetic manipulation."

"Eating a bunch of lava chocolate cakes and keeping them off my hips."

"Being loved." It was silent and Amy had a feeling she might have gone too far. Yes, the night was spent commiserating, but there was a difference between that and holding a personal pity party. "Either that, or at least loving myself if I end up alone."

Raj sat up pretty fast, and for some reason Amy felt prepared to defend herself. So she sat up as well.

"Have you ever thought about what you would do if you could do anything?" Raj spoke fast and quiet. The tone, both decided and hurried made Amy dread what he could be leading up to.

"Isn't that what we were just saying?"

"No I mean…. Like what if we do end up alone?"

"Well this just keeps getting more and more depressing."

"No!" Raj said, shaking his head. "Think about it. We might end up alone."

"And this is just occurring to you?" Amy could remember thinking that her entire life. She thought that the first time a boy in kindergarten told her she would end up a cat lady.

"No but listen. Amy. What if we never find anyone?"

"I'm still not seeing how this isn't depressing. Unless this ends in one of those pacts where if we hit a certain age we degrade ourselves to be subject to each other. Actually that's not a bad idea if we just-"

"Amy. What if when we are old and eighty, and alone on our death beds we find that we didn't do anything that made us happy because we spent so much time trying to find someone so we wouldn't be unhappy? What if, when we are wrinkly and about to die from dementia we find that we never just tried to be happy by ourselves?"

"Raj. Yes of course I…. wait… are you saying that we should instead try to fix it now so that we are okay alone?"

"What is something you have always wanted to do that had nothing to do with love?" Raj asked, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

"I want to go to Paris." She said without even thinking about it.

"I want to go to Paris!"

"So let's go to Paris!" As soon as Amy said it she knew she had something foolish. Damn her brain for always going too far in the heat of the moment.

As if reading her mind Raj said "No but why don't we?"

"Because we have jobs, we have no business in Paris, and we can't afford plane tickets across the world."

"We can take time off, we have the business of wanting to see it before we die, and I have tons of money. Amy, Amy, Amy don't you get it?"

"We're going to Paris?" Amy half screamed/half yelled in excitement.

"No." Well that was a letdown and she was even more confused. " that's not all. You are I are going to come up with a bucket list tonight and do all the things on the list. If we do all ten, you are I are going to Paris to eat macaroons and crepes, and find ourselves some little foreign love muffins."

"A bucket list?" The concept wasn't completely foreign to her. But in Amy's understanding it usually occurred when one was actually facing the possibility of dying. As far as she could tell, Raj and her suffered from heart ache but not near death.

"Yes. Think about it. This way we make the time to be happy now. Like in Eat, Pray, Love. So that whatever happens we find happiness even if we, God Forbid, don't find love."

"I don't know Raj…"

"Amy, tell me ten things you have always wanted to do and haven't. And I will tell you eleven fantastic reasons why you should do them now, ending in Paris."


	3. The Quest Unfolding

**As always I don't own a thing but the words below. Also, your reviews made my night. More than any amount of chocolate and feel good nice notes. Review and it makes me write faster. Also- still on the beta lookout. **

Raj ran to the kitchen and started rifling through random drawers. Amy could hear the drawers sliding and slamming and seconds later he returned to her. In one hand was a Chinese take-out menu and in the other two black BIC pens. Amy looked behind her, and other than a couple of cabinets still slightly open, everything looked to be in its rightful place. Raj plopped down on the couch next to her. On the back of the takeout menu he had already written in **_The Bucket List _**in loopy scrawl. He wrote her name underneath it, and his halfway down the page. Underneath both of their names he numbered one through ten. At the very bottom it had one bolded 11.**GO TO PARIS. **He got to the number one on her name and looked at her expectantly.

"Um…." She thought. Amy never did well with being put on the spot. She did well with preparation. She excelled with note cards numerated by importance, with highlighted sections of textbooks differentiated by post it notes with an applied color system. "I have always wanted to….. part my hair to the left?"

She could tell by the way his nose scrunched up, and his eyes widened that was not the answer he was looking for. "Amy we can't reward us for parting your hair to the other side. You can do that anytime." He reached over, and flipped her hair over her head. "See, you did it."

Amy didn't like the concept of other people touching her. Lately she had gotten more used to it, especially if that person was Sheldon, but still the fact that a man that wasn't dating her had run his fingers through his hair made her stomach clench in an unreasonable way. "Okay, well then you show me how it's done."

"Okay." Raj agreed. He tapped the pen to his chin a couple of times, looking up at the ceiling to rack his brain. "It has to be things we have always wanted to do. I have always wanted to….. be part of an epic musical number.

"How are you going to accomplish that?"

"I don't know. That's for us and this list to figure out. Besides they did it in High School Musical, Ferris Bueller, and Easy A. How hard can it be?" He wrote in loopy scrawl under his number one. _Public Musical Number. "_Your turn."

"I've always wanted to….. be a big sister."

"Amy it's not supposed to be impossible things." He scowled. "I don't think you can go back and make your parents give you a sibling."

"No, not like that. I mean….. well when I was younger I was made fun of a lot because I was different. Imagine if I had a Bernadette growing up. Or someone like Penny who could have taught me makeup, or how to give Bobby Mcman a right hook when he tried to tie my hair to the sink in chemistry. I want to do the Big Brother/Big Sister Program and teach a future young mind that she is okay, even if her left boob is three sizes smaller than the right."

He nodded. "I could get on that ship. I've always wanted a mini me." He wrote down _Big Sister. _"My turn. OH oh oh! I know! I want to learn how to twerk." He nodded, proudly. "Or at least take a pole dancing class." He wrote it under his number two and looked at her expectantly.

"I want to get another MD in psychology."

"Why?" Raj asked. His jaw was open, and she could read confusion etched on his face.

"Because I have my MD in Neurobiology, which is an adjoining field. It was the smarter decision out of the two because-"

"No I mean…isn't that kind of a liberal field compared to what you study now?" She almost laughed at how much he sounded like Sheldon to her right then. Well Sheldon with an Indian accent.

"Well the two fields are closely related. One is more the practical biology route, and the other studies the theoretical applications of it. It would make me a more rounded scientist. I would be able to be the lead researcher on more studies. While I am already on the track to get nominated for a B.S.A, it might be able to open the doors and opportunities to get me one step closer to my Nobel Prize." Also it would mean that, once she obtained her B.S.A, she would have more degrees than Sheldon. But she refrained from telling Raj that.

"But won't that take years? And a lot of money?" Raj asked.

"There are lots of potential workplaces that will pay for their employers to get further education. The only problem is that with most schools they limit the amount of secondary degrees, so I wouldn't be able to work at UCLA anymore because that's where my PHD is from. So the money aspect is easy to get around. As for the years it takes to complete it, like I said the two subjects are closely related. I'm sure with little studying I could test out of most classes, or just simply write thesi. Granted there are some schools more flexible with this type of thing, so that would limit my school selection . Thus far my research shows I would only need to take and study for a total of eight classes. Which, with careful planning I could complete within a semester."

"So why haven't you?"

"Doing such would require me to resign from UCLA. And while I am not opposed to the idea, I mean I basically put UCLA on hold to work at Caltech for my short stint, it would be quite a major change. I have been toying with the idea for weeks. I wanted to talk to..." Sheldon.

The truth is that she wanted to talk to Sheldon about it. She had been tossing the idea around in her head for months, but every time she opened her mouth his was already open and complaining about something he needed advice on. Every time she was about to ask for help herself, Leonard and Penny had worked him into a spin, like a top head on a table, and it was always up to her to stop him from spinning out of control. It was up to her to ease his mind, and according to their relationship agreement it was her responsibility in their relationship to put him first. But she had been waiting for the right time to bring it up. A time where he could have helped her draw up an itemized chart that took everything from drive length, to possible animal extinction into account. But now he would never help. Sheldon wasn't her boyfriend anymore. He didn't care about her, or her academic pursuits if his absence was anything to go by. So now she had to make her own lists.

"If you do that you can do me!" Raj exclaimed. Amy shot him a confused look. "I mean be my psychologist." He clarified.

"It doesn't work like that Raj. But maybe you are right. This might be the time to take a chance. Write my new item." And he did.

"Okay my turn!" He exclaimed. "I want to attend a Christian religious ceremony." Amy opened her mouth and closed it. As far as she knew Raj wasn't looking for a new diety. "I'm not looking to find a new belief system, I've just always been curious."

It was back to her again. "Well I have always wanted to run a half marathon. Studies on exercise and the brain are all conclusive that it really does increase endorphins."

"We could use endorphins right now." Raj agreed.

"I've always wanted to get into running." She mused. And she had. She had even gone as far to purchase orthopedically sound sneakers, a running sweat suit, and a local gym pass years ago. But every time she walked in the sliding doors, it was like a parade of Barbie's. Every girl there had their hair swinging behind them in a perfectly poofed ponytail, their makeup flawless, untouched by sweat. She had watched them, like an unknown species, as they perfected their already toned six packs on contraptions that looked like 18th century torture machines. She stuck out like a sore thumb, her own sweat drenching her back after only .04 miles on a treadmill.

"I've always wanted to loose ten pounds." Raj murmured. And Amy assumed that maybe he too had a story as well of why it had never happened. Or maybe he had just gotten too caught up in Halo. "Maybe with working out, and dieting I can actually find a way to achieve that. Okay so two more down. Your turn again."

"Ten each? Um I would like to publish an article about the effects of-"

"Amy do all of yours have to be academic?" He whined. "This is supposed to be about fun. About making sure you are living. So whatever you were about to say I reject it."

"You reject it? You can reject my own goals for myself?" She asked stupefied.

"Yes. This is OUR goals for us. We are going to do them as a team."

"Wait I don't understand how we are going to be able to get dual doctorates as a team."

"I will help you study for your doctorate, thus it's my goal for us as well." He clarified.

"Wait I am going to have to twerk and participate in a music number? Or somehow assist you in doing so?" She could feel her heartbeat accelerating.

"Yes. And also climb the Hollywood sign. I've always wanted to do that too." He added marking a new one to his list.

"But…. But what if I am bad? At all of it?"

"Then we move past it, but at least you can say you've done it." Raj looked up at Amy and she was certain he could see the fear in her eyes. Nerds like them didn't ever put themselves out there to get judged on anything other than their academic pursuits. They did the probable thing, the smart thing. "Amy we are going to take chances, look stupid, and come away with memories and a kick ass trip to France. You can't give up on me now mon petit chou."

Amy felt like she was about to hyper ventilate. It was true, things were different now. She had friends, and friends required you to go outside your comfort levels. But this was going from simple lesbian experimentation to gyrating her booty in a specific manner. Amy, having had missed out on a lot of experiences in high school, was eager to catch up on new ones but in the back of her head she could still hear Sheldon's voice.

_Really Amy? What has Penny done to you? Do you really think going to some immature dance class is going to get you your ultimate goals? Where is your brain young lady? You are too smart to squander your achievements away in these trivial pursuits. Honestly, I don't know why you would want to waste your time. It's like in the movie Star Trek…. _

But Amy was done with what Sheldon wanted. She had followed all his rules and guidelines. She had spent months maintaining adequate distances she wanted to cross, hiding emotions she wanted to discuss, and always choosing the path that Sheldon Cooper forged. And after months of adhering to his strict code she was the one left spinning on a table with no one attempting to place her upright. _Screw it. I don't need his approval. From now on this is for me. _

"And I've always wanted to watch all of Doctor Who." Raj was adding to his list which also now included winning a contest and surfing. 

"I have never gotten high before." Amy offered and was both please and frightened of Raj's smug face that greeted her.

At the end of the night the list has been finalized. And they had argued over some points ("_Tell someone_ doesn't make any sense Amy. I don't know what emotional scar it is but you would have to tell me for it to be about both of us." "I will not put any reckless form of self mutilation on here Raj. No tattoos and nothing that can ultimately kill us like sky diving. I will not die in our attempt to stay alive.") But the list was finalized. It was a messy stained takeout menu with itemized numbers scratched out, and rewritten in bubbles on the edges. Their barely legible chicken scratch filled the page in an unkempt manner, but it was their treasure map. The quest had begun, the gauntlet had been thrown down, and the challenge had been extended. They couldn't go back this time.

**The Bucket List **

**Amy Raj**

1. Be a Big Sister 1. Public Musical Number

2. Get an MD 2. Twerk/Pole Dance

3. Run a ½ Marathon 3. Religious Ceremony

4. Get High 4. Loose Five Pounds

a New Friend 5. Doctor Who Marathon

6. Wear a Questionable Dress 6. Surf

7. Go Camping 7. Climb Hollywood Sign

8. Toilet Paper Someone's House 8. James Bond Moment

9. Go Skinny Dipping 9. Enter a Dance/Rap/Poetry Contest

10. Go Golfing 10. Hit a Baseball

** 11. GO TO PARIS**


	4. The Gym Mannifestation

**Yes I know, I know Sheldon isn't back yet. And sadly there will actually be maybe about three more chapters until he does get back. But I need some things to happen first, some bucket things to get crossed off before he comes. As always- still looking for a beta. I would highly appreciate you sending one my way if you know of any. Also reviews remind me that I don't suck as bad as I think I do, and encourage me to write faster. So I would greatly appreciate them. Now let's get to the action shall we? **

Amy hated running. It was a simple fact. Simple as the sky was blue because of Rayleigh scattering, or that the frontal lobe contained most of the dopamine-sensitive neurons. But, the pure hatred was only true during the actual event. Afterwards she enjoyed the post workout high, the feeling that she accomplished something, and imagining the ways her body would become more aesthetically pleasing and healthy. At least that's what she told herself as she continually pushed one leg in front of the other. But during it, all she could do was count down miles with the treadmill as she got closer to her goal and pray for the end to come quickly.

Raj wasn't running so much as dancing to whatever music he had in his ipod. She could hear a deep beat from his headphones, on the treadmill to the right of her. She much preferred dancing Raj to the Raj that had come with her the morning before, and kept falling asleep on the treadmill every couple of minutes. The first time they had come, a full month ago, he had set the treadmill to a speed of 2.0, fell asleep, and got carried away by the pull of the treadmill. He ended up in a weird knot of limbs, his buttocks unusually close to his own nose, his arms and legs undistinguishable from each other. It was a miracle his neck hadn't snapped. So from that gym episode on, Amy kept a close eye on him and woke him up anytime he started dozing off besides her. But that was becoming less and less of an occurrence. And now Raj was running, or in this case dancing, to .5 of a mile less than her on most days. It was still a horrible process to barge into his apartment, wake him up with a bullhorn she got off of amazon, and force him to get in the car every morning, but once they got there she was always glad she did it. In the past month she had worked her way up to a steady 5k every day. In the past month, a lot had changed.

She had gone ahead and given her two weeks' notice to UCLA. In those last two weeks she just had to supervise, rather than start another study. She had also dual job offers and schooling from Stanford, University of California San Diego, CalTech, and University of California San Francisco. Stanford was her top choice because it was the best school for Neuroscience in the nation and she had always wanted to work in their department. She was willing to relocate if needed, but they weren't as willing to work with her on getting her MD done in one year. And then it merely came down to location- Cal Tech was the only one within a two hour distance. She should have been more excited about it, but since her feces flinging fiasco, she was hoping to just get her degree within the year, and then move- either back to UCLA or out of Glendale all together. Until then she was picking up, right where she left off at Cal Tech, so it seemed like nothing had really changed. Nothing expect the random night classes she had. And the fact that apparently she was running now.

"Is this machine in use?" Amy looked to her left and saw a tall, lanky man with curly light brown hair. She shook her head and looked back to her treadmill, only to see that the flashing red number telling her the distance ran hadn't increased.

"How can you run without music?" The man next to her asked, starting his own treadmill. Amy looked around and noticed, for the first time, that everyone around her did have headphones of some type in.

"I don't know." She answered honestly.

He smiled, and continued running, setting his machine at the same pace as hers. While Raj bopped with every step on one side of her, on the other side her legs moved in tandem with the skinny man on the opposite side.

"I'm Regen." He offered after a couple of moments passed. She looked to him to realize, that while he had ear buds plugged into an old school ipod, they were sitting on the top of his machine, untouched.

"Amy." She gave in response.

"Where are you from Amy?"

"Glendale. You?"

"Idaho."

"That's a-" She had to take a breath "long ways away." She choked out.

"Farther than Glendale." They both went silent again, and Amy could hear Raj humming along to whatever song he was listening to, and the patter of their feet on the machines.

"So….do you like music?" He asked after a couple of moments.

"I guess." Amy offered. She didn't really know how to answer that question. Yes, she did, but she wasn't like Raj who wanted a soundtrack to follow his every move. She also wasn't like Penny who automatically liked any song on the newest radio stations. She definitely wasn't like Sheldon, who preferred quiet at every turn. She was picky when it came to music. If she liked the song, then she could listen to it on repeat and be satisfied. But if she didn't, she preferred silence.

"What type of music?" He asked and Amy was curious as to where this conversation was leading.

"Um, everything." It wasn't true, but Amy was struggling to get words out and it seemed the easiest response. He nodded and Amy went back to watching the numbers on the treadmill, mentally willing them to go by faster.

"Here try this. See if it helps." Regen was holding his ipod out to her.

"Oh no, I couldn't."

"No, just listen to the one song. If you don't like it, hand it back to me."

Amy was not a germophobe,especially not when compared to Sheldon but she did have a problem with using someone else's ear buds. All she could think about was the tiny microbes and sweat that had touched his ears and how they would transfer to her own. But she was also a fan of proper social etiquette. She wasn't sure what the correct protocol was, so she decided to just go with it. If she was going to get high within the next couple of months, she needed to start doing crazy things. And everyone knew non sanitized ear plugs were a gateway problem. So, trying not to think about germs or earwax, she put the ear plugs in and pressed play. The song started off loud, which took her by surprise but she didn't turn it down. It was fast paced, and soon her feet were syncing up with the rhythm. She felt her body pulsing to the beat, and for some reason she felt a jolt of energy go through her. She allowed herself to just listen to the music, and before she knew it, another song was starting. She looked up at Regen, to see his green eyes watching her carefully. She took the ear buds out, wrapped them around the ipod as best as she could while running, and handed it back to him.

"So?"

"I liked it." She confirmed, and was surprised when his wide smile got even wider.

"Made the process easier huh?" She nodded, and looked down at her numbers. Within the song she had finished her last mile and run some extra. She slowed the machine down to a halt, and breathed heavily to try and get her heartbeat to calm down. "How long have you been running?" He asked.

"Not very long." She admitted. "Is it that obvious?"

"Nah. I can't imagine how you do it without music though." It was at that moment Amy realized he had been having an entire conversation with her, without once having to catch his breath. There were no indicators, besides his feet moving, that he was running. He had no shortage of breath, no dilated pupils, no sweat, and Amy predicted that if she was to hook him up to electrodes his brain would hardly show any signs of exertion. This was even more strange to her because he had seemingly been going steady next to her for at least twenty minutes.

"How do you do it?"

"I run marathons." He answered simply, seeming to understand what she was asking. "Sometimes I'd rather do my daily running in a building with cold air as opposed to the sweltering California heat." She nodded.

She could hear Raj's machine coming to a halt next to her. "Well it was nice to meet you." She offered, assuming Raj would want to leave now that the three miles was up. She was about to turn around and get ready to leave, when Regen's voice stopped her.

"I could give you some pointers sometime, if you would like." Regen offered and Amy looked up at him.

"Really?"

"Yes." He nodded, smiling at her. "I know how hard it is to get started in running. We could discuss it sometime?"

Amy smiled up at him. "That would be wonderful." And he smiled back just looking at her. Amy was unsure why his gaze was lingering, and was about to ask when he seemed to snap out it. He quickly reached for his phone and then handed it to her. She could see the create contact screen flashing up at her, and quickly entered her information before handing it back to him.

"Well," He said taking his phone back and putting it by his ipod. "It was great to meet you as well, Amy from Glendale. I look forward to our talk."

Amy smiled. "Just let me know when." She turned around and found that Raj wasn't besides her like she assumed. How had he walked away without her noticing? She tried to find Raj's dark hair and small frame among the people around them but couldn't.

"Not to be too intrusive, or forward but does Wednesday at nine work for you?" Wednesday would be Halo night for Raj, and she got done with classes around seven.

"Yes, that would be fine. Just text me. I can meet you wherever you choose."

He nodded to her once more, and then looked down at his phone with a smile. Amy waved, slightly distracted and went to find where Raj had gone. After five minutes she found him lifting five pound weights by all of the body builders whose weights were significantly heavier.

"Ready to go?" She asked and he smiled at her mischievously.

"Amy! How is my favorite little man eater?"

She scrunched her nose. "I don't know what that means."

"Look at you getting back on the horse."

"I don't think this gym offers equestrian classes." She was getting more confused.

"No I mean, way to get back out there."

"Back out where exactly?"

"Oh don't play shy, I saw that lanky boy flirting with you. He's no Ryan Reynolds, but he seemed cute in his own way. "

"He wasn't flirting with me."

"Then why did he ask for your number?"

"He is going to give me some running pointers."

"Why did he need your number to do that?"

"We are going to meet on Wednesday to discuss it."

He whistled and nudged her. "Amy Fowler has a date."

"It's not a date." It wasn't was it? If it was a date, the word date would have been used right? Besides they were both meeting wherever it was, and he said nothing about dinner or anything. At that moment her phone beeped and she looked down at the message.

_Amy from Glendale. If you want I can just pick you up on Wednesday? What type of food do you like?- Regen (treadmill boy)_

"Oh my gosh it's a date!" Amy exclaimed and Raj just beamed back at her.

"Damn, he asked you out without you even knowing it was a date. I need to get pointers from him"

Amy's mind was racing. A date? The last date she had been on had been Sheldon. And before that it was strangers who had met her on a dating website. Never had a guy come up to her and asked for her number. What did one talk about on an actual date? With Sheldon it had been easy because they knew each other. With the online dates, she took comfort in the fact that a majority of them wouldn't contact her again once she took coitus off the table. But wait… Regen… would he expect coitus? Had she given him any indication that she would be willing to engage in coitus? Damn her tilted uterus for making false promises!

Sensing her inner freak out, Raj put his arm around her. She felt his sweat, damp and warm on her skin and recoiled instantaneously. He didn't seem to take it personally.

"At least one of us is moving forward."

Moving forward. Amy had to remember that's what she was trying to do. That's what this was all about. And if the universe decided to place a willing date in Amy's lap, who was she to complain?

**Dinner Party Next Chapter yo. Also thank you for the reviews of last time. They warmed my soul. **


	5. The Dinner Party Dilemma

**Oh my gosh your guys reviews made my day! And I might have a beta, I am just waiting on their response. But because you guys reviewed so much I wanted to give you the chapter as soon as I wrote it instead of making you guys wait a week. And, I know, I know- where is Sheldon in this SHAMY story? Well patience is a virtue and all that jazz. He should make an appearance around chapter ten. Sorry! Amy has to become and do certain things before that. But the next chapter is the date... so that should be interesting. And the chapter after that? Pole dancing. Woot woot. Remember- reviews make me write faster. As always, I don't own TBBT**

"Have you thought about what you are going to do when he comes home?"

The question was the same one Amy had been asking herself since the moment he left. Granted, there had been other questions as well_. Why did he leave me? Would I be in this position if I hadn't pressed him so hard to move in with me? What is he up to? Does he miss me? Am I doing the right thing?_ But the main question was, w_hat was going to happen when he got home? _

"Nothing." She said. And she had to believe that. In romance novels the man came home, swept the women up into his arms, and then embarked on an endless night of passionate love making. After which he would declare in some romantic confession that she was his eternal companion and they lived happy ever after with three kids and a dog. But life with Sheldon was never what anyone would call a romance novel. He would be too worried about breaking his arms to sweep her in any fashion, the words love making weren't in his vocabulary or his skill set, he didn't believe in marriage, commitment, or in kids being conceived naturally, and he hated dogs. So no, for her own sanity she had to force her imagination not to concoct fantasies that would never happen.

"Nothing?" Raj looked confused.

"He tried to end our three year relationship over a couch." She yelled over a screeching noise like sounded like a dog being hit by a motorcycle. Wincing, she spun the tooth pick in her drink. She marveled that the green olive on it was the exact shade of her sweater.

"What do you think _he's_ going to do?" He bellowed, putting his hand to the side of his mouth to better amplify the sound.

"Nothing!" She exclaimed with a fake smile.

"Nothing?" Raj asked. And she nodded, unsure if he was repeating it back because he was making sure he heard right, or he didn't believe her. Either way, she decided to down the rest of her drink. She didn't feel any better when she saw the bottom of the clear glass. "This is the man who once sent Neil deGrasseTyson one hundred and twenty six emails, 63 tweets, 113 texts, 29 facebook emails, and flooded his phone with who knows how many voicemails to try and get him to take back his comments on string theory. You think he's just going to do nothing?"

"He didn't send me any emails!" That's not true, he had sent her one. It said _Amy, on March 28__th__(following the unfortunate spider incident) I made an appointment for you to have your apartment fumigated. It's on July 16__th__ at three. _No word on how he was, no inquiries to her state of being, not even a sincerely Sheldon at the bottom. '_That's romance for you,' _Amy thought to herself bitterly.

"Butterfly dies?" He shouted. Or at least that's what it sounded like, over the crowd shouting the lyrics to Party in the USA,. She looked at him strange. "BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO IF HE DOES?" Unfortunately on the would will, the song ended, leaving him screaming to a somewhat quiet room. All the tables within vicinity turned to look at the shouting man. His eyes got wide at the sudden attention, but just as fast as the lull had occurred, the restaurant was filled with tables chattering amongst themselves before the next performer took the stage. Raj took this opportunity to scoot his chair closer to her. "Everyone in the groups seems to think he's going to find some technicality in your relationship agreement to counter your break up email."

Amy laughed. The idea of him fighting for their relationship at all seemed ridiculous to her. He hadn't mended things between them the first time they terminated their relationship until his mother manipulated him into it. He hadn't asked her to be his girlfriend until her date with Stuart pressured him into it. He hadn't kissed her until she had nagged him to the point of anger. Every step they took was influenced by an outside force nudging him into it. _For every action Sheldon had a equal but opposite reaction, _Amy thought. But Amy was done pushing and prodding. She knew without this pressure, Sheldon would operate the same as he always had- staying still until another outside force came along. Which reminded her. "What does everyone think my response will be?"

But at that moment another singer named Kitty got up and started singing "Pour Some Sugar on Me" in a key three octaves higher than the one playing on the stereo. It sounded like an owl mating call. Raj opened his mouth to answer, but instead got distracted the second the Kitty girl moaned, and started to peel her shirt over her head, obviously affected by the music and slightly intoxicated. Amy took the moment to grab his drink under his nose, and down it as well while he ogled the tone deaf, but very toned Kitty. She smiled to herself, an eventful karaoke night indeed.

.

.

.

.

.

When Raj said he wanted to have a dinner party during the list making, Amy had immediately nixed the idea.

_"It doesn't count, you have dinner parties all the time."_

_"Ya, but nobody ever goes!" He whined. _

_"Then why do you throw so many?"_

_"Because I want to have a good time with my friends and lavish them with some culture. Why can't they accept what a good friend I am? Why Amy? Why?"_

_"Because every time you throw a party you give it some ridiculous theme. You say it's Gatsby themed, or Jane Austen. People don't just have time period gowns laying around their house."_

_"So you are saying if I just said, 'Come to my house for food' people besides Stuart would show up?" He looked genuinely confused. _

_"In my experience no one says no to free food with no obligations. Besides, even if they don't come you can have at least Stuart, and I there.'_

_'Can I at least make the theme Kardashian casual?'_

_'No.'_

_'The Graduate graduation dinner?'_

_'I don't know what that means.'_

_'Gossip Girl brunch?'_

_'Do you want to have dinner at your house or not?'_

So while it wasn't on the list, Amy and Raj were throwing their very own dinner party. Throughout the month they had both realized they had one major thing in common- they loved to cook. So between the two of them, and their goal to help Raj lose weight, they had shared mutual healthy recipes and cooked many meals together. When Raj told her his plans to have everyone over, they automatically rushed to find the best recipes that they could prepare for everyone. But Amy had to admit, she was nervous for how the night would play out. She hadn't seen the rest of the group since a little after Sheldon left. Penny and Bernadette had texted her, and constantly sent well wishes with Raj but Amy had been avoiding them. One of the main reasons was she was embarrassed.

She knew that both of them found her relationship with Sheldon to be abnormal. They had never refrained from telling her so. And that knowledge had never stopped her from confiding in them before. But for some reason, she didn't want to tell them anything. She wanted to keep things in her head, swimming around until she knew how to sort it all out. She knew talking to them would only bring about a couple of things. One of the first is that they would feel sorry for her- she already felt sorry enough for herself. She didn't need two women who were excelling in the relationship department to pity her. Second, they would once again bring up the oddities in her and Sheldon's relationship. Amy had a hard time addressing all the complex emotions inside of her when it came to that. Yes, she knew her relationship wasn't normal, but at the same time it had been special to her at the time, and she didn't want them to devalue that with their remarks. Just because it didn't satisfy her currently, didn't mean she didn't love it once. And last, she didn't want them to give her the lecture that Sheldon cared about her in his own way. She knew that type of talk would only get her hopes up for some miracle when he got home. Amy was taking all the steps in her life to be as realistic as possible. She didn't want to start instilling false hope now.

But that didn't mean she didn't miss them terribly. She did. Only a couple days before, when she had watched the final episode of New Girl, she started to text Penny to ask if she had seen it. Then, seeing the text in front of her, she had decided against it, afraid to open that can of worms. Two weeks ago, she was let off work early and thought about driving to Bernadette's work and ask her if she wanted to get lunch. But Amy told herself that Bernadette probably already had plans, and decided instead to go read a book at home. Amy was bursting at the seams to see her two besties. But the longing to see their bright and beautiful faces still hadn't outweighed the fear that they had a lot to discuss. A lot she wasn't sure if she was ready to address- including the fact that they might decide not to be friends with her anymore. She hadn't seen the men in a while. She had a feeling as soon as Sheldon came back she wouldn't ever see them again. This was sad to her, but not as sad as the possibility of losing the only girl friends she had ever had.

"You never did tell me what they thought was going to happen when Sheldon got home." She remarked casually, while stirring the pasta in front of her. Raj looked up from the watermelon he was cutting, his eyebrows crinkled together in confusion. He brought the knife up in the air, and his eyes shifted back and forth to the ceiling as he tried to find in his memory what she was referencing.

"Oh… Are you sure you want to know?" He asked, turning back to the watermelon.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Well I wouldn't want it to affect your decision of what to do when he does come back."

She thought about it a little while, and then decided that she didn't think it would. "Tell me."

"Okaaaaayyy." She could hear the doubt in his voice, but before he could say anything else, juice from the watermelon started to spill over the counter and to the floor. She took some of the paper towels next to her and ran over to help mop the pink juice up.

"I'm fine. I'd like to know before they come."

"Well Leonard thinks as soon as Sheldon comes back, you are going to chastise him and then go back to normal." He shook his head at the absurdity of the idea and it made Amy smile. "Howard thinks that you are going to hold out and ignore him, and then Sheldon will kiss you or tell you he loves you and you will fold like a metal chair. Penny thinks that Sheldon will come back a changed man and that he will sleep with you, or something to show you that. Bernadette thinks that you will get back together with him when he gets back for a little while before breaking up for good." Amy watched as he started putting the slices he cut in a round bowl one by one.

"And you?"

"I think that you will do what's best for you. And he will either man up and become what's best for you and it will be a romantic story you will tell your kids years from now. Or…"

"Or?"

"Or he will remain Sheldon, and you will find your happy story elsewhere."

Amy stirred the pasta again.

It began perfectly. Raj and Amy danced throughout the kitchen as they normally did while making dinner. The chicken spidini was in the over, the fruit salad was on the set and prepared table, the pasta was being finished by Amy, and the tiramisu was being perfected by Raj. She loved nights like this, where they bopped to Katy Perry, and danced around each other to get ingredients, occasionally stopping to spin in circles with each other, sing a particular line into a spatula, or even do the running man. Nothing was amiss when both couples arrived. They hugged both the hosts, maybe lingering on Amy a little longer, said pleasantries and then gathered around the table for dinner. The conversation effortlessly flowed to work at Cal Tech, to the wedding, to Howard's mother. There was never a lull, and Amy was starting to wonder what she had been so scared about to begin with. There was no talk of relationships, or of Sheldon and after everyone's plates were empty they all went into the living room to drink wine and continue talking about wedding plans.

"So my sister will be a drunk, but entertaining maid of honor." Penny snorted, as she drank what seemed to be her fifth glass.

"I hope Sheldon's back in time for the wedding." Bernadette said. But as soon as she said it, her eyes got wide, and she fumbled in her seat a little bit. At the sound of Sheldon's name, Amy felt everyone eyes turn to her to gage her reaction. She smiled pleasantly, to let them know that she was fine with him being mentioned. It wasn't like she was mentally unstable, and would start throwing food at the sound of his name like some hormonal ape.

"Have you decided to include him in the wedding party?" She asked, hoping that the question would make them all relax. She prided herself that her voice didn't raise in pitch at all.

"Yep." Penny said, while Leonard fake moaned. But everyone knew he didn't really mean it.

"I still don't understand why he is your Best Man." Howard complained. Bernadette patted him on the back reassuringly, and Amy assumed that this was a sore spot.

"Ya," piped in Raj. "He's not even here to help plan the bachelor party."

"But he's Leonard's best friend." Penny said. She could tell Leonard was about to argue with her so she continued. "Yes, he's a lot to deal with, but honestly who else were we going to have? He'd have to choose between the two of you," She looked pointedly at Raj and Howard. "And we all know that would have started a riot. And it's not like Leonard is close to his brother Michael or my brother. Besides I think it's fitting to have Sheldon."

"I know. You are right." He whined, looking at the ceiling in typical Leonard fashion. "Though personally, I am dreading the best man's speech. You just know he's going to make some comment about my lactose intolerance, or tell a story about how he thinks I don't sexually satisfy you."

Everyone laughed, while Penny stroked his leg reassuringly. "Oh baby, it's okay. You can pay him back and tell equally embarrassing stories at Amy and his wedding." She cooed to him. But instead of laughing again, or chiming in everything went silent.

The sudden quiet was unnerving. And Amy was frozen in shock. Instead of having everyone eyes assessing her, everyone seemed to freeze and look anywhere but her. And Amy felt her stomach lurch.

"Um Penny?"

"Yes Ames?" She said, not looking at her, already having caught what she had said.

"Sheldon and I aren't getting married." She looked at Raj to make sure he was okay with her addressing this now. She could tell by the crinkle in his forehead he was nervous for her. Seeing this, she felt a little bit braver addressing the Sheldon shaped elephant in the room.

"Well of course you aren't now." Penny said gulping, still looking at Leonard's lap instead of at Amy directly. When the silence seemed to be too much for her to take she continued. "But in the future…." She left the sentence hanging.

"It stands to reason that two people that aren't in a relationship with each other, are on no relationship trajectory that would lead to marriage." Amy finished, trying to sound as emotionless as possible. At this Penny looked at her. She took a deep breath and Amy did as well- knowing Penny well enough to know that she was about to dive into the awkward waters ahead of them.

"Just because you aren't together right now doesn't mean that you won't be when he gets back." And the room suddenly became think and heavy with tangible curiosity, radiating off of every person around them.

"I don't see why my relationship status would change when Sheldon returns."

"Honey, I know Sheldon hurt you but are you really saying it's over between you?" She could tell Penny was still looking for some sign of weakness, something in her to prove her point right, and talk her down from whatever ledge she imagined her to be on. And that made Amy sit up straighter.

"Sheldon made that decision when he walked out."

"Yes, but you know that had nothing to do with you." Penny said. The same words she had said when Amy was sitting on her couch beating Leonard with a pillow.

"Would you stay with Leonard if he just took off? Without talking about it with you first? Without telling you where he was going or when he would be back? Without even saying goodbye?"

"Well he did say goodbye-" Leonard started, trying to defend Sheldon.

"He said goodbye to you and Penny. Not to me. I didn't know until I showed up at your house with no forewarning, and you called him to have him confirm the story. Since then it has been radio static. So I pose the question to you Leonard. If Penny disappeared one day, with no goodbye but a three minute phone call saying nothing but 'I'm safe but I have to leave', with no mention of your emotions, how it would affect you and your relationship, and little to no acknowledgement to you at all would you want to wait around? Bernadette? Howard would you leave Bernadette that way and expect her to wait? "

"But Ames, sweetie, our relationship is different than yours and Sheldon's." Penny tried.

"Ya" Howard agreed. "We are married."

"And we are engaged." Leonard followed up with.

"We are in committed relationships." Bernadette said softly.

"Sheldon and I were in a committed relationship. It wasn't solidified by a moniker used by society to establish that, but we did have a legal document stating such. And I am given to believe that's what marriage is predicated on by some individuals. Even so, I do agree the nature of your relationships is different. But my question still stands, if you were in a committed relationship of three years- would you wait?"

"No." Howard stated and everyone looked at him. "I mean, I would wait forever for Bernadette. But the answer to earlier is no. I wouldn't expect her to wait for me. I wouldn't do that to her." He looked at Bernadette and she smiled warmly at him and snuggled under his arm tightly.

"But Amy, yours and Sheldon's relationship has always been different." Penny tried again.

"Yes, but whose fault was that?" Raj asked bitterly.

"It was partly mine." Amy admitted, not wanting to throw all the blame on Sheldon. "I don't think I could ever be in a normal relationship, and I liked it for a majority of the time for what it was. But… the truth is I do want a more normal relationship."

"She at least wants a boyfriend who will kiss her!" Raj exclaimed and Amy smiled, touched again that he was on her side, trying to help the others see where she was coming from.

"Or at least a boyfriend who considers me before he flees town." She admitted. And she looked around to all the shocked faces and remembered what Raj had said about their expectations.

"I understand that a lot of you want to be friends because you think things will go back to normal when Sheldon returns. But I have to tell you, that for me they won't. I just…. can't do that. I don't know what's going to happen between Sheldon and I, but I do know that there will be a lot we have to figure out before I just fold like a metal chair." She looked to Raj and was nodding proudly at her use of Howard's metaphor. "I understand that you guys are all first and foremost Sheldon's friends. And I understand that finding out that Sheldon might not want you guys to be friends with me may impact our future friendship. I would never want to come in between you and him, which is why I am being honest and frank with you."

She didn't know what else to say, so she decided to go to the kitchen to start cleaning up, assuming they needed time to process and talk about what she had told them. She picked up a dish, only to see Raj had walked over with her, and was reaching for the same dish as well. She felt herself overwhelmed with gratitude for him, and reached for his hand to let him know that. He smiled at her warmly, seeming to understand her gesture.

"Amy?" She heard from the living room.

She took a big breath and turned to look at Bernadette. "Yes?"

"Tonight's dinner was lovely." Amy felt her stomach return back to the unpleasant lurching. She was prepared for them to choose Sheldon, but it still hurt none the less. "And Howard and I were wondering if we could make this a weekly thing with you and Raj? Your guys cooking was to die for."

"You should teach Bernie how to cook." Howard agreed, smiling even as Bernadette playfully hit his arm. "What? My mom would love the tiramisu."

"I would love that." Amy confirmed. And she felt tears of joy starting to prick at her eyes. Raj put his arm around her, and she leaned into his embrace.

"We would too!" Penny piped in and Leonard nodded. "Right now we are trying to get the wedding planning under control so we might not be able to make every Saturday, but if the invitation stands?" She asked. Amy merely nodded, trying to get her sudden tears under control. "Also we need to have a girls night!"

At that point Amy let out a little laugh, with a bit of a happy sob in it and Penny and Bernadette rushed over to hug her. Soon all the girls were gushing about how much they missed each other as the men watched in confusion. Raj stood on the outside, teetering between wanting to join the hug and wanting to observe. In the end he returned to the kitchen and started washing dishes.

"Oh Amy you should tell them about your date coming up!" He piped in, and the squeals and giggles in the main room got louder as all the girls started talking at once, overlapping each other.


	6. The First Date Affair- Part One

**AUTHORS NOTE- You know I don't own anything. Okay so remember when I said that it would be chapter ten we would see Sheldon? I lied... This chapter has a part two, to it. But I have officially written everything up to chapter eleven. I am just waiting to hear from my beta. She got sick, poor girl. And I haven't heard from her since. So... it's been a couple weeks and so I decided to put this up and hope she gets back to me soon. I didn't want you guys to think that I forgot about you or this story. So keep her in your prayers. She's a freaking sweetheart and I hope she is okay. Hopefully, there will be an edited version of this and the previous chapters up soon. Until then... enjoy. **

In fourth grade, Freddy Archer pulled Amy's pigtail during recess and called her "coo coo crazy Amy". Amy thought "zany Amy" sounded better. Unfortunately bullies never take suggestions. For years, up until an unfortunate comment in sixth grade biology, she was called Coo Coo Crazy by all of the kids in her school, her neighbors, and even one senile gym teacher. The one thing that gave Amy the confidence to face it, was that she knew she wasn't crazy. Her mother didn't have her tested like Sheldon's mother had done, but she knew. It wasn't because she trusted her own brain. Amy was aware a majority of insane people thought that they were normal. The reason Amy knew she wasn't crazy was because she had gone to the library and looked up symptoms of the mentally ill.

She didn't experience any extreme emotion shifts, she didn't have any incongruities in the reality she experienced from the ones people seemed to have around her, she didn't have any memory lapses throughout her days, and she didn't hear any voices in her head. So while people taunted and ridiculed her, Amy found solace in the knowledge that she wasn't the least bit crazy.

Recently though, Amy was starting to doubt that. There was one main difference in her mental state that had her wondering if she should commit herself to mental care. She was starting to hear voices. No, not voices. One voice. The voice of a very tall, very absent, and very opinionated Sheldon Cooper.

At first Amy thought it was natural. She had known the man for four years that it could be considered natural that she should be able to anticipate what he might say in different situations. But if that logic was sound, then she should have heard her mother's voice every time she popped an R-rated DVD into the player, she should have heard Penny's voice telling her what clothes were stylish or not at the mall, and Raj's voice should have pricked at her conscious every time she passed the diet alcohol at the liquor store. Why? Because in all those circumstance she could remember, or imagine what they would have said if they were there with her. But no matter how many raunchy movies she watched, bright tights she coveted, or fatty alcohols she purchased - she couldn't hear them in her ear. Only Sheldon.

Sometimes it wasn't so bad. When she felt alone, she could snuggle up to his voice giving her a lecture on proper flossing technique until she fell asleep. In between the monologues of tooth decay wherein she could try to convince herself she didn't need Sheldon, he had already created a version of him that would never leave the confines of her subconscious. But on other nights, it was all Amy could do not to grab a fork and perform a lobotomy on herself. Her date night with Regen was one of those nights.

She pulled out a black skirt out of her closet that she rarely wore. It was cute, but it came above her kneecaps, so she only wore it on special occasions. A date would count as a special occasion.

_Are you about to go on a date or to a brothel?_

She put it back and instead chose a dark green corduroy one. She then pulled a plain white button up shirt out.

_Well that doesn't seem very festive._

She instead chose a white one with blue pinstripes. She matched it with her yellow, brown, and white sweater. The one that _he_ always said looked like fall in Texas. It was the sweater she was wearing when she kissed Sheldon for the first time, but the Sheldon in her head had no comment to that. So it was safe. She didn't put too much effort into her makeup.

_Your face doesn't need all that junk. It's a date not a theatrical production._

She adjusted her usual barrette and her glasses before looking at herself in the mirror. Once again Sheldon's voice was not to be heard.

It was the first date Amy had been on where the man had picked her up in his own car. Being on the passenger side had been a whole new experience. The first of those was that there was music playing. Amy didn't really care about the band Journey, but it was on low. It was low enough for two people to talk over, not that either of them really tried. When Regen parked, he walked around the car and opened the door for her. Sheldon had always opened doors for Amy, Texas upbringing and all, but not the car door. Never the car door.

_It's not time efficient. By the time I would have opened and closed two doors, we could have both been in the restaurant._

When they entered the restaurant, he didn't suggest that they both go to the bathroom to wash their hands, so she followed his lead.

_Oh, so now you are both going to contract E coli. Didn't your mother warn you about bridges and peer pressures of jumping?_

They followed the waiter silently to their table, and placed their orders. He didn't comment on her choice, and she didn't worry about the particulars of his. After the food arrived, Amy had time to look around at their surroundings without him observing her. The restaurant was a Korean place that Regen claimed had the best _kimchee_. And, the truth was, that after being with Sheldon, any new place seemed a respite from the same six chains where she was expected to get the same meals. But the surroundings seemed halfheartedly put together. There were pictures on the walls of _geishas_, orange chicken on the menu, and green statues of elephants in the middle of the walkways.

_Hopefully, they don't put as little effort into their food as they do their culturally inaccurate decorations._

"This is the most traditional Korean place I've found."

Amy picked up the little white elephant decoration in the middle of their table. "How do you know?"

"I actually went to Korea." He sipped his water with a smile.

Amy smiled back, but even she could feel the smile was forced. She should have been over the moon to be on her first date since Sheldon, but experience had taught her to always be on guard. Dates always led to rejection and humiliation. She had no reason to believe this one wouldn't as well.

_Well with that attitude, there's no doubt it would._

Amy had to agree with the Sheldon voice, she had to at _least_ make an effort.

"Really? When?"

"I actually used to be LDS, Mormon. And in the Mormon Church there are these things called missions."

"Missions actually predate Joseph Smith, and go back to the time period when," She saw his eyes widen and caught herself before she could ramble. "Sorry. Old habit. So how long were you there?"

"Two years."

She waited for him to elaborate, but he just blinked at her with the same easy smile on his face.

"Did you knock on strangers' doors like they do here?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Oh." Then something occurred to Amy. She felt her stomach drop. "Wait. Did you ask me on this date to convert me to a different religion?"

His face turned white. Of course it was too good to be true. Here was the turning point of every date - the time where it came out that they had only asked her because her mother had blackmailed him, or he was looking for a Jewish looking girl to be in a porno he was producing.

"No. I am not a missionary anymore." Amy breathed in relief. "Besides we never said it was a date. We are just two people, getting together to talk about running, and our lives," He looked down at the table, his cheeks turning red. "And if the man happens to admire how beautiful the woman is that's just a coincidence." Amy wasn't used to compliments on her appearance so she smiled in spite of herself. That's when he looked up. "Okay so it is a date. Sorry. I'm not very good at this."

"Oh? Me neither." Amy confessed.

"No? I figured a girl like you would go on lots of dates." Amy blinked in confusion a couple of times, unsure of what would make him think that. "No. I don't mean you look like a 'serial dater'. Not that you couldn't be a 'serial dater'. You have the confidence, and I guess I uh," She was confident? "Okay wow. I am terrible at all of this. I guess that is what seven years abroad does for you. Okay let's just start from the beginning," He held out his hand for her to take. "Hello, my name is Regen."

Amy was happy that he seemed to have less of a handle on the dating thing then she did. Suddenly, any pressure she had put on this evening seemed to dissolve. "Hello Regen. My name is Amy Farrah Fowler." She shook his hand. It was clammy and warm, and she fought the urge to wipe her hand on her skirt after.

"I like your name, Amy."

"I like yours as well, Regen."

"So Amy, what do you do for work?" He took a big breath. "If you do work. If you don't, that's fine too. I just,"

"I am a neurobiologist. I work at UCLA." She saw him gulp.

"Wow."

"Yes." She replied, but she didn't really know what she was agreeing on.

_He probably doesn't even know what dark matter is._

"So," Amy continued. "What do you do for a living?"

"I just finished my residency, and signed on to be the newest pediatric doctor at Huntington's."

_Oh goody. Imagine the amount of viruses and parasites he comes in contact with daily, not just as a doctor, but a doctor of children, nonetheless. You might as well marry a male nanny._

"Wow."

"Yes."

They both picked at their food for a couple of moments.

"Why aren't you good at dating?" He looked at her, and Amy choked on her food. "I'm sorry. Just earlier, when you said - You know what? That's too personal of a question. I'm sorry."

But Amy liked his bluntness. She was much more at home with direct statements than anything else.

"No, it's fine. I wasn't what you would call a 'social butterfly' growing up. I didn't really even have friends until four years ago."

"Well what about these past four years? It stands to reason you must have blossomed between then?"

"Well I was dating someone, up until recently."

"How did it end?"

"His roommate getting engaged, an ill-timed proposition, him leaving the state and maybe even the country, a phone call, and then an email."

Regen nodded at all of it.

Suddenly, Amy thought of something. "Seven years?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You cited being out of the country for seven years as your reason for being bad at dating. Where were you?"

"I joined the peace corps after my mission, did my undergraduate abroad."

_And he's been out of the country for extended periods of time? Good lord woman, are you trying to pick up a disease?_

"So what kept you from dating? Surely being abroad isn't a reason."

"Well I didn't have time. And then after that I spent all my hours at medical school and finishing my residency. I feel like I still haven't gotten over the culture shock and figured out how to assimilate back to American culture. I still sometimes drive on the wrong side of the road, I forget to say 'please' and 'thank you', and I forget I'm supposed to woo women and give my mother grandchildren." He smiled and laughed. "Oh no. I forgot I'm not supposed to talk about future children on the first date. American girls don't like that."

Amy laughed as well. "So, Regen, tell me about what you like to do for fun."

At the same time they both said, "Besides running." Both of them smiled.

"I will tell you but you can't make fun of me."

"Make fun of you? Do you read comics? Collect action toys?"

He blinked. "Um, no. Okay, that makes it sound a little better. I like to play bass for a band. It's just a little thing with old friends." Amy waited for Sheldon to make a comment in her head - heaven knows the man had set himself up for it by Sheldon's standards. But all she could hear was the drone of the restaurant. And for a second there, she was actually disappointed.

"What kind of music do you play?"

"Alternative." She expected mental Sheldon to say "Alternative to what?", but all she could hear was Regen continuing. "We're just a normal band. Playing some gigs on random weekends, singing about girls, and love, and sometimes even changing the oil in your vehicle." He chuckled, and Amy assumed that was a joke. "You could come next week to an event we have on Thursday?" Amy listened again for the voice, and heard nothing. It was up to her to make a decision.

"I would like that."


	7. The First Date Affair- Part Two

**_A BIG THANK YOU TO MY BETA! She's alive y'all! Check out tangerinemochimaiden because she is awesome. And you guys! Your reviews made my day! Because you guys reviewed so fast, my beta is the best ever, and I basically have the next chapters written- I think you should get updates more often. Tell me honestly what you think so I can improve. But honestly- your reviews melted my heart. Also- I've written some chapters with Sheldon. So patience my wonderful colleagues, it will happen. Also... this chapter has a type of Sheldon... hehe_**

The evening went well. Amy didn't know how to grade first dates, but as far as she could tell, nothing went wrong. Nothing was set on fire, no one was taken into custody, and no angry wives came in looking for their cheating husbands. Well, maybe except for an awkward moment on her doorstep where he may have tried to kiss her but settled for a hug instead. Now that she'd dwelled on it, nothing was wrong with the date whatsoever. Amy turned the keys to her apartment and turned on the light. If nothing was wrong with the date, shouldn't she be happy? Excited for the next, even?

As she was thinking about this, Raj came out of her bathroom door and she screamed.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just wanted to hear about your date!" He rushed over to her.

"What is it with you boys and just letting yourselves in?" She grumbled.

"So? How did it go? Was there romance? Did he take you on a carriage ride? I've always wanted to go on a carriage ride." Amy thought about the date and frowned. "Wait. Was it really just a meeting to talk about running?"

"No. It was a date. You were right. " He nodded, relieved for her sake. "Why would we go on a carriage ride? Is that a normal first date activity?"

"No." Raj sighed. "I've just always wanted to go on a carriage ride."

Amy nodded and they both walked to the couch and slumped down. Amy always kept proper posture, but for some reason, she felt the need to hang her body over the edge of the couch like a loose noodle. Raj just looked at her.

"If that's the case, what went wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Then why do you look like somebody murdered your dog?"

Amy had no answer for that. It wasn't like she had high expectations going to the date. In fact it had far exceeded her expectations.

"Are you missing Sheldon?"

Amy didn't even know herself. "Why would my date with a potential romantic partner make me miss Sheldon?"

"Well, kind of like every time you try a new pizza place you compare it to all the pizza you have ever eaten."

"I fail to see how pizza has anything to do with dating."

"All I'm saying is it's easy to make comparisons from something or someone new to what you were used to."

"But in this scenario it would be like comparing dinner to dessert. They are so different."

"Wait, I am lost in the metaphor. Which one is dinner and which is dessert?"

Sheldon was obviously dessert. The dessert she craved all day and night long, when she knew eating dinner instead would be healthier for her. He was the cake she snuck out of the fridge at three in the morning, keeping in mind that it could be a never-ending battle of heeding its call and trying to cut the addiction. He was the delicious and dizzying decadent cake. "Neither. Look, I just. They are very different people. And that's a good thing." Amy concluded.

"Okay. So are you going to see him again?"

"Yes, I will be going to see his band play. I may ask Penny and Bernadette to accompany me." She had been meaning to do a girls night for some time. Maybe this would qualify.

"His band? Look at you, all wool and polyester, seducing rock stars." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

"I am not seducing him."

"Not _yet,_" Raj tilted his head when Amy frowned. "I know what will make you feel better about all of this."

"I don't think I can stomach any alcohol you could conjure up at this moment."

"Let's start crossing Doctor Who off this list, baby."

_Raj- Watch Doctor Who_

Amy disliked the episodes she had been forced to watch with Sheldon, for the same reason she disliked most comic books - in her core, she was a feminist. While Amy didn't openly talk about it, she hoped her very existence would pave the way for more females in science. And because she valued strong females in her personal life, she also gravitated towards entertainment that had strong female characters as well.

She wasn't opposed to science fiction. In fact, the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games trilogy remained two of her favorite book series, and she had a feeling that if Sheldon didn't believe that they were Wheadon's "dalliance in chick flicks". She and he could have watched Buffy, or even Dollhouse on their date nights. But instead, Sheldon obsessed over Doctor Who. And like many of the comic books Sheldon read, Amy saw a similar trope that automatically turned her off - a strong, male super hero with his feisty female sidekick whose value was more in her short skirts and witty banter than her ability to save the day. She wanted to point this out to Sheldon, but she had already ruined one beloved movie for him. No, it was best not to do that again.

No matter how much she adored Sheldon, she avoided Saturday mornings so she wouldn't have to sit through the red-headed girl, and the curly-haired girl almost die for a pedantic genius and get saved every time by the same man they were trying to save.

Needless to say, when Raj had come up with the idea that he wanted to watch episodes of Doctor Who, Amy had tried to eliminate the idea before he had a leg to stand on. His argument was that he needed to do it before WhoCon that same year.

Raj had a secret. He had only seen random episodes of Doctor Who. He had only seen Star Trek, Firefly, and Battle Star Galactica because the boys had group marathons of it. But they had never had a Doctor Who Marathon, with the show being from the sixties and Sheldon being anal about order. He could have watched it in his spare time, but instead seemed to always choose to watch romantic comedies he couldn't watch with the boys.

Amy fought him on it, citing all the sexism and plot inconsistencies she had found in her short term of watching it. But no matter how violently she refused, Raj kept coming back to it. By the end of the night they had reached an agreement - they would only start the show from the reboot, and there would be an open thought policy. Meaning that any thought, negative, or otherwise, that they wanted to voice out, they were free to do so. Thus, if Amy wanted to spend the whole time ranting about sexism, she was given that right. And if Raj wanted to comment on how out of the world River's ass was, he had that right as well. Still, even with this agreement, Amy was less than keen to start the process. That was, until the popcorn was popped, her and Raj were camped out with blankets, both of their feet perched up on the table in front of them, and the show had actually started.

"Wait. So the evil people are the creatures that fart inside their suits? That seems unsanitary."

"Sanitary is something that can differ between cultures, so it's safe to say it can differ between intergalactic species as well. I am more repulsed by the fact that with all the special effects the United States was using in their movies by 2000, the best this show can do is a green light to signify that they are changing bodies."

"Also, does this seem like a negative commentary on obese people to you?" Raj asked while reaching over to grab some extra popcorn out of her bag.

"I still don't understand why the boys love this so much."

"To be fair, the special effects do get better. And the women get hotter." Amy tilted her head and watched Rose declare that she was willing to die for the human race. Amy surprisingly didn't dislike her yet. In fact, the character had already shown more gumption then she expected.

"Also, who doesn't want to be a part of space, adventures, and time travel?" Raj asked. "If you could go to any event in history what would you want to see?"

Amy thought about it, and a lot of things crossed her mind. She wouldn't mind spending the day following Madame Curie, or watching the first man walk on the moon, even spending a day watching Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons perform live held intrigue to her. But she knew what her honest answer was.

_"You bought me a present?" Sheldon was looking at her, with a look she had labeled his exasperated look. It was mainly reserved for Penny, Leonard when he was in violation of the roommate agreement, and the geniuses at the apple bar. "Amy, you know how I feel about presents."_

_"It's not a present Sheldon. It's just a 'thinking of you' token."_

_"A token is physical representation of a fact, event, or feeling. Under which category does this fall?"_

_"Does it matter?"_

_"It does. I still have to choose whether or not to accept it."_

_"Sheldon just open the damn thing."_

_"Okay, okay." He started ripping the newspaper off of the gift that she had wrapped it with. "If I had known your menstrual cycle was coming a week early I would have stocked more iron strong food in our fridge," he mumbled to himself as the paper fell away. "Love You Forever." He gasped and Amy beamed. _

_"Robert Munsch was signing books at the local library and I thought of you."_

_"My Meemaw used to read this to me when I was little!" He was holding the book like a fragile piece of China._

_"I know, look at the front page." He flipped to the front page and gasped again._

_"You had it signed by Robert AND Meemaw! Did you mail this to her?"_

_Amy nodded. She waited for him to say something else but Sheldon just flipped through the book, not looking at her. She was a little disappointed. He had gasped a couple of times, but he hadn't hugged her, jumped up and down, demanded her to return it, or any response Amy had prepared herself for. Yet again with Sheldon, she had also learned to expect the unexpected. Proving true to her point, Sheldon walked out of his kitchen and towards his bedroom without saying anything._

_Amy should have been angry, but she understood Sheldon. She had made the decision when buying the book that if he reacted negatively she wouldn't turn it into a fight. It was meant to be a nice gesture for him, not something reciprocal. And chances are he needed time to process everything. So trying not to be disappointed, she picked up her purse. Right as she was about to turn around, Sheldon was peaking around the corner at her._

_"Are you going to stay out there all night? Hurry up."_

_Confused Amy put her purse back down, and followed him, into his bedroom. He sat on his bed, his back touching his headboard and his shoes hanging off the side. Amy was even further confused. Was he going to give her coitus as gratitude? He patted the spot next to him, and Amy hesitated. The last time she was on his bed was during their Dungeons and Dragons role play. But when he huffed impatiently she decided not to question his sudden impulse and jumped next to him._

_"Amy, have you ever read this book?" She shook her head. She had a feeling that she finally knew where this whole bed adventure was heading and she felt a little disappointed. That was until he wrapped his arm around her. She looked at him in confusion. "You have to snuggle while reading bed time stories." He said. With him willingly touching her, on his bed no less, she didn't dare correct him that it was the middle of the day._

_ So she instead leaned her head into the crook of his arm while he started reading. She loved listening to his low calm voice. And every time he sang the main part, something just settled inside of Amy. A lot of times, when they were together like this Amy felt her lady part tingling. She felt a burning heat that she sought to put up in flames._

_But this, this was different._

_With his arm tightly around her, looking at her proudly with every page he turned, his voice so gentle and soothing, Amy didn't feel heat. She felt something else. It was an all-encompassing emotion that didn't travel from one part of the body, but instead just slammed into her and filled her all at once. Love. Overwhelming, overpowering love. It was in her every organ, nerve, and cell. She didn't have any desire to rip Sheldon's clothes off, or even kiss him. For some reason those actions felt like they might cheapen the experience. Whatever was happening, it was bigger than mere lust. She just wanted to sit there, in that moment. Maybe cry a little because she didn't know how to respond to feeling so much at once._

_"I'll love you forever. I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."_

_When the story was done, Sheldon didn't say anything nor removed his arm. He sat there with her. And Amy felt, inexplicably, like he was feeling the same thing she was. After ten minutes, she tilted her head up slightly to look at him. And to her surprise, Sheldon shifted a little so her head was still on his chest, but he could look at her as well._

_They had always been able to understand each other with their eyes, and this was no different. He felt it. Something intangible had shifted, but it existed. Neither of them spoke, content to just let their eyes speak words their lips never dared speak. If Sheldon didn't have an eidetic memory she would swear he was trying to commit her face at that moment to his memory. Neither moved for what seemed like hours and minutes at the same time. In fact, she thought that neither of them would have moved if Leonard and Penny hadn't come into the apartment calling out their names, signifying their turn to go back to the real world._

_But to her surprise, Sheldon didn't hurry. He didn't jump apart from her, or start talking a mile a minute to try and talk away their experience. He watched her detangle herself from his arms, and he slowly rose himself. He gingerly placed the book on the top of his dresser, moving the Flash statue to the side. It was now the focal point in his room. And he touched a finger to it, running it over the top of it before turning back to her. Leonard was yelling something else, but Sheldon just stared at Amy._

_"Thank you." Amy nodded, but he grabbed her shoulders and looked her in the eyes, unblinking. "No. _Thank you_." He emphasized again. Amy wanted to hug him, but before she could take the risk, he had already turned around and walked out to see what Leonard had been complaining about._

Raj had said something to her, but she had missed it. When she turned to look at him, she felt tears start streaming down her face. He didn't need to ask, he knew the memory of Sheldon was all around them.

But Amy didn't want to cry. The rest of her body seemed to agree with that resolution. Her chest wasn't wracking or heaving, no moans escaped her lips, but her eyes just kept tearing up, no matter how many times she rubbed them to get them to stop. Before she knew it, Raj had pulled her under his arm. It didn't feel like Sheldon's arm above her, and that made the tears start coming faster. Raj didn't speak, he just watched the television, while holding her tight and squeezing her arm every couple of moments. The night progressed with Raj stroking her hair, until she was able to control her tear ducts. His shirt was wet from her face, but not a single sound had escaped either of them. They both instead focused on the sounds of the television. After a couple of episodes, she fell asleep, and she woke up the next morning with a blanket tucked around her and a note from Raj on her table.

_Don't forget pole dancing tomorrow_


	8. The Pole Dancing Catalyst

**_You guys! The reviews seriously make my day and keep me going. Thank you so much for that. Also- random question. I am looking for a link. Once upon a time some foreign countries version of So You Think You Can Dance/Dancing With the Stars did a dance based around Sheldon and Amy from TBBT. I am looking for that link. Someone once had a link to it from her site, but she's recently gone off the deep end and deleted everything... So I guess I am also looking for someone whose got a master fic list as well now. If not- I might just make my own. If you can get me the first link, or even the second I will be so thankful I will let you request something happen in the story or update when you ask me to, or tell you the ending to a cliffhanger in the story, or bring Sheldon in sooner, or update more often. Really anything you request. I just want that link for secret purposes._**

**_A big thanks to you guys for keeping me going, my beta for being freaking awesome, and the show creators who own all the rights- not me.  
_**

_Raj- Pole Dancing _

Amy felt herself slipping down the metal pole again, despite the fact that her hands were covered with a chalky powder designed to keep her from doing any such a thing. But sure enough, the smooth ground below her greeted her bottom in a rather rough way. It was all she could do not to growl in frustration. This was worse than the body rolls they originally had to do against the poles. In that part of their endeavor, her body had just moved unattractively. The pole was throwing her against the floor time after time and Amy was not going to let herself be counted out of this rodeo so soon. No, this was personal.

She grabbed the bar and attempted to hoist herself up, but seconds later she felt her hands slip down with indignant squeaks from the pole. She was once again brought down to the wooden studio floor. She looked over at Raj. He was a couple rows ahead of her spinning and gliding to the ground in movements betraying how graceful he really was.

When they had first arrived, Amy had felt confident. It probably had something to do with the matching outfits Raj had bought her beforehand. They were like the ones the popular girls in middle school used to wear- bright green neon shirts, shorts, and sweatbands. The week before Amy had paraded around in front of her bedroom mirror every night, like she would have in eight grade if her mother had given her the quintessential eighties outfit. But like gym class in the eighties, Amy still didn't fit in. A majority of the women in the room were dressed in nothing more than skimpy underwear. But she and Raj matched, a neon united team against the poles. And being on a team was comforting to Amy, after having spent so long being last picked. It was this knowledge and partnership that got Amy through the doors of the gym.

But that confidence had left shortly after practicing "sexy walks". And it was certainly gone now that she and the ground had become so intimately acquainted. Instead of just curling up in a ball at the bottom of the pole and proclaiming the wax floor home like she wanted to do, Amy got up. She didn't have enough strength to attempt, yet another futile try at climbing the metal stick of death again so she instead walked to the back of the room, to grab a drink of water from the fountain. A girl with a tank top and running shorts stood behind her, waiting to refill her water bottle. Amy let her go ahead and instead looked around the room to see other people progress. She was relieved to see that most people seemed to be having the same problem she was, and the floor held more people than the poles did.

"I hate to break it to you, but your boyfriend is scamming on other girls." The girl with the running shorts said to Amy. Amy looked over at Raj, and sure enough he was now leaning against a brunette girl's pole and saying something to her. The girl looked uninterested, and Amy actually found herself sympathizing with him.

"Oh he isn't my boyfriend." The girl behind her nodded and drank a sip from her water bottle. Both watched Raj, who was now continuing to talk with the girl, even after she'd turned her back against him.

"Is he?" She trailed off, and Amy knew what she was asking. It was hard not to when the only other boys in the class were wearing lipstick and heels themselves.

"No. He's just an exotic man tempted by the allure of western culture." She repeated verbatim what Raj himself had said while buying his Frappuccino earlier that day.

"Well as long as someone will be getting something out of this eight week disaster." On that note, they watched as a girl with a bright red corset fell to the ground with a shriek.

"The teacher will feel ultimately accomplished to have one protégé twirling on his heels." She said sarcastically and was proud when the girl laughed at her joke.

"This was on the list of things to do to get over breakups. Now I'm wondering if I should even progress to the acupuncture portion."

"I'm sorry" Amy said in a way she hoped sounded consoling.

The girl waved her free hand in the air and shrugged. "Honestly, it's the breakup that hurts this time around. Not the loss of the boy. Believe me." She chuckled to herself. "Guess what that ass got me for my birthday? A gift card to his uncle's sushi bar."

"Well that doesn't sound too bad."

"I'm allergic to shellfish." She laughed. "No, I'm better off without him."

"My boyfriend," Amy caught herself. Thankfully none of 'the group' was around to hear her slip up. "_Ex_-boyfriend bought me socks for my birthday."

"No!"

"He said he noticed that the other ones I had on were about to get a hole in them. Apparently it was between that and a humidifier, which actually would have been kind of sweet."

She waited for the blonde to interject a comment about her definition of sweetness, or just look at her in disbelief look most people got when she tried to explain Sheldon. But instead she just shrugged her shoulders. "I, personally, am a sucker for any boy that will bring me juice. Especially if it's of the orange variety. One well-timed pitcher, and there goes my clothes."

Amy couldn't help but wonder about the cost-to-sex ratio. If all it took were a gallon of two dollar juice, the girl in front of her would be cheaper than most prostitutes. She was curious if any men had used that to their advantage. But if Amy was correct, the girl was saying that it was the sentiment associated with juice, or one's familiarity of her love of juice that resulted in sexual acts, not the currency of juice itself. She wished that there was some type of juice that got Sheldon going. The closest thing to it was Yoohoo, and it had both familiarity and a positive association but no possible leads to sex. "Humidifier or not, no clothes would have come off."

"By the way, I'm Arlene Russell." The girl offered, holding out her hand. Something about the name tugged at Amy's memory. If only she had an eidetic memory like Sheldon.

"Amy Farrah Fowler."

"Farrah. I love it. So tell me, this humidifier boy, how recent ago did it end?"

"Two months ago."

The girl nodded, as if doing some type of equation in her head. "How long did you date?"

"Four years." And the girl took a sip out of her water bottle.

"So you loved him." The words felt like they were painted in the studio around Amy. On every surface around her, in all shapes and sizes, was boldly painted_. _It was like the world was deciding for her. Her story was destined, written by others, always to follow her without her ever being able to have a say.

"How is rebound time coming?"

As she was considering this, Raj came to the back of the room. He was bounding over, with his mouth open, his lips already starting to pronounce her name, when his gaze fell on Arlene. At the sight of her, he froze, his mouth open, eyes wide, foot half in the air to take his next step. Arlene looked over to see what Amy was looking at. And to Amy's surprise she also had a reaction. She looked at the small man in a neon suit and her brows furrowed in confusion, but seconds later her brow was furrowed in a completely different emotion.

"YOU!"

Raj, remained where he was. Not a muscle twitched on his face.

"I know you!"

Amy was starting to become worried that whatever was happening had reverted Raj not only to his selective mutism, but now a mental Parkinson's syndrome where his body would freeze until the women left the room.

"You're that pervert!"

At this, Raj seemed to come out of it. "Hey! I'm not a pervert! Also I don't understand why you're mad. You were the one who rejected us in a dismissive but effective manner."

"Is this what it is about? Are you following me because I had you and your midget friend banned from Starbucks years ago?"

"You're the reason I got banned from Starbucks? I thought it was the other barista Howard," At that he stopped, seeming to realize that what he was about to say was going to only worsen the situation.

"What did he reach across the counter to try and 'find her nth term'?" And by the way she referenced it Amy could only assume that she was speaking from experience.

"Who cares what Howard did? What did I do to get banned? You know, for years since that, I've been forced to go to the Starbucks two streets away to get my tan raspberry mochas."

"What did you do? You whispered those dirty lines into his head. I bet you were the one who wanted to 'discover our coefficient of friction.' "

"I only told him to tell you how pretty you are. Just because I can't talk to women,"

"Can't talk to women? You are talking right now!" Amy could tell the entire room was looking in their direction, and somehow it made her puff out her chest. Yes, she was in the middle of a real fight. She felt like a hooligan.

"I never did anything to you! In fact I used to write,"

"Write me creepy love notes on napkins and leave them."

"They weren't creepy!"

"Did you or did you not write me a letter telling me you would date me even if I was your cousin?"

"I was referencing the delightful Emma by Jane Austen. Which is both suave, and romantic."

"And all the times bowl cut offered me a diet coke because I had so much '_ass_partame', you just sat there and giggled like a little girl."

"You have to admit it was clever!" Raj's voice was high.

"Clever would have been my foot up your ass." At this point the instructor was walking over to them. Arlene looked at Amy, and instead of the flashing hate by association she expected to see, what she saw was determination. "Look I hate your friend," Raj huffed. "But sometime this week some of us are going to go dancing. It's supposed to be some type of rebound night. But it should be fun. Anyways, here is my card. Shoot me a text and I will get you the details."

Amy looked down at her card. Apparently Arlene wasn't working at Starbucks now. Based on the card, she was a high profile lawyer. Amy thought she probably wasn't a very good lawyer based on her extreme emotions before, but something endeared her to the girl anyways. She was protective of Raj, yet she understood where the girl was coming from on this one. Raj apparently didn't feel the same.

"Why would you want to party with her?"

"He is not invited." Arlene clarified.

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Since she was eight, and had to get ready for school on her own, Amy always laid out her clothes the night before based on a weekly rotation of outfits, and occasions. There was rarely any variation. She wasn't like Penny who would try on ten things, and leave them strewn about on the floor. She wasn't like Bernadette who was always ten minutes late because she couldn't find an outfit she liked. No, Amy believed in planning ahead. She believed in choosing a practical outfit, and sticking to it. But in one day, Amy had tried her entire wardrobe on looking for the perfect outfit.

She wanted to fit in with the girls around her. And she knew that she didn't dress the right way for clubs. She didn't have boob defying dresses, or a snug little ensemble. Not that she would have worn them, but she didn't exactly own them either. She was also under the impression that people were supposed to be themselves when making friends.

To make friends. It was her goal. It was on the list. Make a new friend. But what she didn't tell Raj was that she wasn't looking for a work friend or a boy slash friend- no she wanted a new girl friend that had never met Sheldon. She wanted a friend that she could claim as hers, and not his. Someone who chose her. Not one who was forced to get to know her by association.

She also wanted a girlfriend with which she could engage in "best friend" activities that other girls seemed to. No matter how many times she told Penny she was her "bestie", the girl didn't seem interested in best friend modus operandi. She wanted a friend of her own to text at three in the morning, come up with code names with so they could talk about people in their presence, and snuggle in the same bed with no homoerotic undertones.

Amy looked around the club wondering if she was lost in a pipe dream. She wasn't sure if friendships could be established at dance clubs. She saw the top of Arlene's head in a sea full of beautiful women. All of them were wearing tight dresses in varying colors. And Amy felt like an American Girl doll set in the middle of Barbie land. She adjusted her dark blue skirt one more time, hoping that the safety pin would hold. Because she had lost so much weight, none of her skirts fit her, but the bobby pin at least fit through the expanse of fabric. Her gray sweater and white shirt also were baggy on her, giving her the illusion of having layers underneath when she actually didn't for one of the first times in her life.

"Farrah! You came!" Arlene bounded over and gave her a hug. Hopefully, Farrah was a nickname, and not just a miscommunication.

"Yes." Amy agreed, noticing that the blonde girl's hair smelled like vanilla. And the smell comforted Amy in some peculiar manner.

"Want a drink?"

"No. I don't trust myself to get inebriated among people I don't know. For all I know you could let me go home with some handsy Randy, or you yourself could be trying to take advantage of me," Amy looked around. "Is this a date? I was under the impression there would be more women here. If it is, I should let you know I don't swing that way except for one blonde named Penny with bosoms that would make Aphrodite cry."

Arlene barely blinked. "Nah. I like me my boys. The girls are over there." She waved her hand in the general direction of the tables. "Are you saying my boobs wouldn't invoke a single tear from Aphrodite?"

Amy looked down at Arlene's flat chest. And Arlene laughed. Even with her lack of breasts, the girl looked good in her blue loose tank top, and tight white mini skirt. Amy remembered the way Penny commented on her clothes in the past and decided it would be best to acknowledge that she didn't fit into the club setting with her clothes before the girl decided it herself.

"Sorry I'm not dressed appropriately."

Arlene arched an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Well my clothes are too big for me. And well they aren't your typical bad girl party clothes."

"You could have worn a tutu for all I care. It's a club. You look hot either way."

Amy waited for the joke, or the under the breath mumble like Penny had done many times about Amy's clothes but it didn't come.

"Are you sure you aren't hitting on me?"

Arlene just laughed and looped her arm through Amy's and brought her over to her table. Standing around it were beautiful girls. Gorgeous girls. Girls that poets wrote sonnets about, painters painted, and inspired heartfelt songs from musicians. Amy was pretty sure that she wasn't the only one that noticed, based on the amount of men that lingered at tables nearby, their eyes following the girls where they went.

"There's Miss Handsies for Xanies." A skinny girl wearing a black leather dress said to the seven girls around her. And Amy was unsure if they were talking about her or not. She didn't even know what the nickname meant.

"Did that actually happen?" Asked another girl, with a body Amy thought was genetically impossible. There was no way a girl could have breasts that big and a waist that small, naturally.

"Yes, I know she was offering hand jobs for Xanax. I don't spread a rumor until it's certified." Okay, so not about Amy. The girl reminded her of every mean girl she had ever encountered - the ones who were very beautiful, outspoken, and had a certain ruthlessness that made Amy uneasy. She looked at Arlene, and Arlene just rolled her eyes at Amy, the edges of her mouth betraying her smile.

"But didn't your boyfriend give them to her?" Piped in another girl with dark purple ringlets. All the girls around the table laughed.

"Which is why I'm not dating him anymore. Besides you're supposed to have my back when some whore tries to take my man."

"Says the whore who says 'spitters is for quitters.'" Ringlet girl laughed, and a couple other joined, until they saw the Queen Bee's frown. "I'm sorry Mac, you know we hate her, for your sake."

"You should hate her for her sake too." Mac grumbled, Amy saw that all the girls were looking over at a blonde on the dance floor, presumably the one they had been talking about. She looked like the rest of the girls at the table- same outfit type, same makeup, same innate prettiness about her. The girl was dancing in front of a man, in a way that made Amy wonder if they were actually having intercourse on the dance floor. She was grinding, her face in a perpetual moan.

"She's so ratchet." Another girl broke it off, while someone offered to take her down with baseball bats for Mac. Is that what girls did? Beat up other girls with baseball bats if they stole their boyfriends? Amy fidgeted. This movement seemed to get all the eyes locked down on her. All of their eyes studying her, calculating.

"Hey, you are A's friend right?" Asked Mac as she blinked at her.

"Everyone this is Amy." Arlene introduced. So she did know Amy's name wasn't Farrah. A positive sign that they were one step closer to the code name portion of friendship. All the girls smiled at her and said hi. A couple shouted out their names, but their voices overlapped and blurred together.

"A tells us you are a scientist."

"A neurobiologist, yes."

"That's sick." A girl next to Amy with smudged red lipstick said. Amy opened her mouth to comment on the overall 'sickness' of it when Arlene whispered in her ear.

"Sick, like, rad. It's a good thing."

"Thank you," Amy said to the red lipped girl who smiled back at her.

Mac smiled at Amy, but it didn't reassure her to the least. There was something inside the gaze that was predatory. Mac pushed her long brown hair over her shoulder. "That's awesome. A told us you are also on the prowl."

"Um yes. I am experiencing relationship suspension heartbreak." Amy confirmed.

"Blows doesn't it?" Mac played with her split ends.

"Indeed." Amy agreed.

"Have you slept with anyone since?" One girl asked. Amy didn't feel like putting out that she was a thirty-year-old virgin to a roomful of pretty girls she just met. Based on past experiences, that could be a recipe for disaster. She shook her head.

Mac was eying the couple on the dance floor. "Has he?"

Amy didn't even want to think about Sheldon and that. "No. It is very unlikely he will ever sleep with anyone, ever." She hoped.

"Did you cut his penis off?" The red lip stick girls face was a mask of pure horror.

"No!"

"Shame." Mac said. "I bet a scientist like you would know best how to do it."

"Is this night about being sad or getting back out there?" Arlene asked.

"Let's dance." Said a girl behind Mac.

"Come on my bitches." Mac said, and the group followed. Arlene was bumping hips with Amy. When they got out on the dance floor, Amy felt uncomfortable. The girls around her were writhing their bodies in ways that would have been effective at their pole dancing class. And surrounded by bosoms bouncing up and down like in a Baywatch episode, Amy felt very out of place.

Arlene made some silly move where she framed her face and bopped up and down, the only one not bouncing and shaking in the group. She smiled at Amy, but a girl taller than Sheldon pulled the blonde girl close, and started dancing on her. The music continued pulsing, but Amy couldn't force her body to move. It was like the girls around her were scripted. They knew what to say to make each other laugh, they knew how to dance without looking like they were having a seizure, and they knew how to dress to match each other. They moved with each other, and it just reminded Amy that she hadn't gotten the same instructions. She was a spectator, not a member. She rushed off the dance floor, pushing past a bunch of cliques of girls, all dancing on each other instead of men, and then had to push past the layers of men standing on the outside of the perimeters, watching the women. But somewhere on the edges, Arlene grabbed her hand.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Yes."

"Okay." She frowned. "Sorry about the girls. I've been friends with most of them since freshman year of college. They can get crazy, but they really have good hearts."

Amy just nodded.

"Look, don't take this as another come on, but I know a place we can go that's quiet but more effective in post-breakup."

"I don't know what that means."

"It means, get your keys. We're about to go on an adventure."


	9. The Wicken Renormalization

**A/N- My beta - tangerinemochimaiden is better than yours. She is freaking awesome. I still don't own anything. **

"It's quieter out here, that's for sure," Amy agreed listening to her voice echo to a silent night sky. They walked along a trail in a forest Amy had never seen before. With every tree along the path taking her farther away from the safety of the car, she was really starting to doubt her decision. "There is a Gardnerian tradition in Wicca history where they go into the woods skyclad, which means naked, in order to better connect with the orders in the universe. And then sometimes it is even followed by orgies."

"As fun as an orgy sounds, it's not on the card tonight." Arlene joked.

"Did you know that Ted Bundy had a cave in the woods in which he killed some of his victims in?"

"I'm not going to murder you, Amy."

"I know. Just trying to make small talk."

After 40 minutes, Amy heard a pounding she couldn't identify but they seemed to be walking closer towards it. After a couple more switchbacks, they passed through a clearing. And then Amy saw what it was that had been making the noise.

"Welcome to Eaton Falls." Arlene ran towards the water, and like a water nymph she started skipping between rocks above the waters' surface with ease. Amy knew, with the water molecules blowing in the air it should have lowered the temperature around them to be uncomfortable. But with the sweltering summer heat and the sweat from their hike, Amy also followed the rock path Arlene forged, enjoying the mist from the water on her skin. Eventually, they got to the side of the waterfall and sat down on two joined rocks. This made it possible that the rushing water was barely five feet from their faces, with the breeze blowing it in the opposite direction. Amy watched as the water rushed down, a mass of color being reflected from the rocks, the trees, and the night. But it was moving so fast it was like she could see everything and nothing at the same time.

"I love coming here to think. I think nature is supposed to cure all illnesses. Or something like that."

"That _i_s what Thoreau advocated." Amy agreed.

"Also I find it helpful to do this," She flashed Amy a mischievous smile as she stood up. For a moment there, Amy worried that her new friend might actually be a mass murderer. But, before she could run away, Arlene belted out a string of curses from the top of her lungs. Amy could hear the words echoing back to her. They were so profane that even Amy felt scandalized.

After three minutes and random combinations of curse words that Amy didn't think should be sprung together, Arlene looked around proudly at her surroundings. She puffed her chest out like her dirty mouth had somehow created their atmosphere. She looked down at Amy.

"Your turn."

"Um, I don't think that will be necessary," Amy said, pushing her glasses up her nose. "The only thing I have in common with sailors is their affinity for hats."

"Just try it!" Arlene squealed reaching her hand down to help Amy up. She took it, unsure as to why she was allowing herself to go along with this. "What have you got to lose?"

"A clean mouth and a firm grasp of the English language." Amy answered, but she already knew that she was going to attempt to do it anyways. Amy started off small, easing into the smaller words like 'hell' and 'damn'. But when Arlene started jumping up and down next to her, her excitement and intensity was infectious. A few words in, Amy found herself screaming streams of swears to the mountains around them. She swore until she couldn't breathe and she had to admit, she _did_ feel lighter. Maybe it was the lack of air from screaming for three minutes straight, but she did feel like some of her problems were now dangling on the tree branches and stones around her.

Arlene started laughing, bouncing with energy at the late hour. "Those pagan rituals you were talking about earlier, did they include dancing and singing? "

"Don't you mean Wiccan?" She asked, thinking about to what she had been talking about earlier. "I'm sure some did, but they would probably have some religious undertones or chant-like characteristics to them. Why? Do you want to do some of them?" She asked, getting more confused by the turn of events.

Arlene shrugged her shoulders and looked at Amy expectantly.

"Why not? Do you know any chants? Or should we make our own?"

"I would have to do more research," Before she could finish, Arlene was twirling around in a circle singing 'I Will Survive' and giggling. Amy had to wonder if the small girl downed more alcohol than she had seen that evening, but she had seemed fine on the ride over. As if hearing her thoughts, Arlene paused and turned back to Amy.

"I don't hear you singing."

Amy blinked. "I wasn't aware that being around water was a reason to engage in meaningless song and dance."

"Amy, have you ever done something for no reason at all but just to do it?"

"Experience would say that most dates I have been on fall under that definition. So, yes."

Arlene laughed, and her laugh echoed in the cavern around them. "Pretend you're a Disney princess and just sing."

"But what if there are people around?"

"So what?" Arlene retorted, looking back at Amy.

Her gaze was direct, daring Amy to come up with an answer. When it was clear she didn't have one, Arlene turned around and started skipping between rocks again in the shallow lake below them. "_And now you're back from outer space. I just walked in to find you here with that strange look upon your face."_

Amy jumped from the stone she was on to another a couple inches besides it. She watched as her feet landed steadily in the middle of the stone before she attempted to jump to another one, a couple inches further away. After a couple of minutes she joined in the singing as well. When Arlene heard her voice, she got louder, encouraging Amy to as well. And there they were, skipping rocks around a pond, screaming the chorus from the top of their lungs.

The moon shone down on them, and Amy started to feel like what she imagined fairies felt - gaining strength from the moon, skipping, hopping, and spinning on stones. They kept repeating the same song, over and over, until Amy couldn't tell if they were on their fourth or fifth version of it, or if she had touched every stone in the pond twice or if she had missed any. When she got closer to their original sitting stones, she moved her leg to jump. But just as she was moving, the skirt she had on, slipped slightly down over her hips. The movement almost made Amy fall into the water between the two stones, but she was able to propel herself far enough that she was able to place her hands on the front of the stone, and crouch on it. All body parts, safe and dry. She started laughing from the almost slip, and pulled her skirt up. Arlene skipped back over, and sat next to her on their original joined rocks

"If you don't mind me asking, if your clothes are too big, why aren't you buying new ones?"

"Because of Sheldon," Amy answered before she could stop herself. Arlene nodded as if it was a totally applicable answer, but Amy still felt the need to elaborate. "My friends always push the idea of making me over to try and solve my problems. So, when I get even just a small ounce of courage, I find myself driving to the mall. But before I even walk through the doors, I am already wondering what would happen if I started dressing differently. What would happen if I dared to try more form-appropriate things? Would my life dissolve into a world of burlesque dancers and booze addiction as my mother believes? Everyone seems to think Sheldon would have this 'ta-da, I'm suddenly turned on by Amy' moment, but Sheldon doesn't care what I look like. And that's a problem within itself. But he doesn't care about that stuff on anybody - if he did he would have slept with my bestie years ago. No one can resist perfectly crafted specimens. So even if I get all made up, who would appreciate it?"

She laughed. "Sheldon would probably just demand I change back. He doesn't like change. He doesn't like a lot of things. I don't want to get all done up to woo him. But then I realize I am thinking about what Sheldon wants, not what _I_ want. So, I try to figure out what I want. I like being able to hide behind my clothes. That's what I am doing isn't it? Hiding. And anyway, I don't even know what's attractive because it hasn't mattered in my life. That is, until now. I wasn't trying to impress anyone. But now that I don't have Sheldon, I'm supposed to be worried about attracting a mate so I don't end up alone, soaking birthday cupcakes with my tears, which brings us back to the makeover. It only feels like I'm doing it to find a replacement for Sheldon. I don't want a replacement."

Arlene nodded, letting Amy's words sink in. "Tell me about Sheldon."

The words flowed naturally from Amy's lips, and for once, she didn't have to think before she spoke. She didn't have to make sure the story portrayed him and her in a positive light. She didn't have to worry what inferences could be taken by her tone and word choice. She didn't even have to finish sentences before interrupting her own words with the next idea that popped into her head.

Arlene just sat next to her, watching the water crash down, her knees to her chest. While Penny and Bernadette would have finished sentences or ideas for her, Arlene let her reach it on her own. They would have yelled in anger at his actions, or played devil's advocate to make her think about what she was saying, but Arlene just listened to her attentively. She didn't interrupt with commentaries on how weird the Sheldon situation was. In fact, if she thought it was weird, her face didn't betray her at all. Her eyes never once flashed with pity or disbelief. She just listened, like she understood.

Amy told her about a game of counterfactuals, when Sheldon liked her answer more than the one he had written and spontaneously kissed her on the forehead in excitement. He then spent days ignoring her phone calls. She told her about a date night kiss, where she tried to add tongue to their date night kiss, and he bit hers and then lectured her while she nursed it. She told her about the time Sheldon once brought her a model train to work because she sounded sad on the phone, and she fell asleep with it, like one would a teddy bear night after night. She told her how she hated trains up until Sheldon kissed her on one, and since then she found herself researching them in her spare time. She told her all about her dreams - the good ones where Sheldon came home and proposed, and the bad ones where he came home with a new girl, or even worse, came home and didn't try to get in contact with her at all. She told her about his fear of whales. She told her about the time he had her Skype his Meemaw and he spent an hour bragging about her accomplishments, and how she got disinvited from his birthday party for no reason until Leonard insisted he had to invite her. She told her about the expensive human skull he had bought her for her birthday.

She wrote a story on the night air - their story. Leaving no secret untold, no thought unsaid, and no emotion untouched. And like a roller coaster, after the initial push, it carried her with an unstoppable force until she finally slowed down at the beginning.

"I need new clothes, but getting new clothes is a process just laden with all types of Sheldon implications."

Arlene grabbed Amy's hand and held it tight. And the contact wasn't the same as when Sheldon held her hand. It didn't send tingles up her arm, or make her heart speed up. It instead seemed to comfort her, to ground her. People seemed to be taking that liberty with her a lot recently.

"Amy," Arlene said at last. "You are gorgeous, but I know when it comes to men it's easy to forget that."

Amy took note of the girl's golden waves and bright blue eyes. After the wind had been blowing on them for hours, Arlene's hair looked like it had been professionally swept to the side, and the small condensation on her face looked like she had been prepared for a sunscreen ad, with just the perfect amount of sheen.

"Like you could ever be anything but gorgeous," Arlene's mouth tilted up at the sides, and she squeezed tighter on Amy's hand. "Believe it or not, we have all had a boy make us feel ugly at one point in our life. It's kind of like heartbreak. Every person has felt it."

Amy looked up at Arlene in confusion. "Wait… I thought you said your breakup wasn't a big deal?"

Arlene laughed and waved her other hand.

"Oh I wasn't talking about the recent one. I actually – well, I was engaged once." Amy watched as she pulled her hand out of Amy's and fiddled with the ring finger, circling her other fingers where the ring should have been.

"What happened?"

"It's a long story." Arlene said warmly.

"So was mine." Amy said, looking up at her from her glasses.

"Okay, okay," She laughed. "But don't say I didn't warn you." After a couple of moments, she still hadn't spoken, so Amy decided to get the ball rolling.

"What was his name?"

"Calhoun. I actually met him in law school. He was perfect. Imagine the type of guy you read in romance novels – that's what he was. We dated all throughout law school, eventually moved in together. You know, the works. On some days I felt like we were the only two people on earth who spoke the same language."

"I am dreading the 'but' coming along."

Arlene smiled. "No, no buts. At least, not yet in the story. It really was perfect at the beginning. We graduated, taking all our dreams of taking the world by storm with us. We used to stay up at night and talk about what we wanted to do, and how we were both going to get there together. His dad eventually got him a job at this big law firm and then that led to him becoming a partner. I was so proud of him. I was his biggest fan - his success was my success."

"But as he became a bigger and bigger deal, nothing really happened for me. I wasn't getting any job offers, and no big opportunities came through. Sure, I was jealous, but I also loved him, so I wanted to show him how proud I was. I made dinner for him every night, got all his suits dry cleaned, helped organize every party at the office, and went to every dinner party dressed as the perfect trophy wife. When people talked to me, that's all I was to them - Calhoun's girlfriend. Not Arlene the lawyer. I was so bitter, but I focused all that energy towards him, and how to help him.

"Still, I was so unhappy that my own dreams weren't taking off. He just wanted to hand me contacts on a silver platter, but I wanted to work my way up without his assistance. But instead I stopped telling him about my dreams, and started focusing on his. Things started becoming different, to the point where he wouldn't tell me when he was winning awards, and I stopped trying as hard to get where I wanted to go.

"Then he proposed. A big effort to try and secure and fix problems neither of us wanted to admit were happening. Then the hints started - everyone talking about babies all the time. I didn't want to be a housewife. Months went by, with both of us trying to push each other in opposite directions. It went on and on until one month Calhoun came home and told me he couldn't do it anymore."

Amy gasped. "What did you say?"

"I tried to change his mind, tried to get him to go to therapy, tried anything but he just said that we weren't happy, and that we've changed. I realized he was right, so I packed my things and moved back in with my parents. And the pain," She looked right into Amy's eyes. "The pain was unbearable. It was like I couldn't get my head to shut up, or my heart to stop tugging me back to where he was. I thought it would never end. I was so out of my mind I just did all the wrong things to deal with a break up."

"What wrong things?" Amy was curious if she was doing it right or wrong.

"Well first, I had grown so used to putting him first, that even when it was over I forgot how to do anything but that. Even with him gone, I still was trying to please the idea of him. I dyed my hair. Purple."

Amy shuddered, and put a hand over her mouth.

"I know, right? I knew he would hate it and I wanted to spite him. I went on dates, and slept with some of his friends. I even went to see this play I knew his sister would be in. And I spent the entire performance looking for him. Counting every head over and over, looking for that little mole on the back of his neck. I was wearing this awful, red slutty dress that you could see down too much and up too much at the same time, in stripper heels, at a children's play alone in hopes he might see me and just want me back. I was getting these looks from moms like I was the most indecent person they've ever seen." Arlene laughed.

"But in the middle of the show a line was shouted. 'If you don't like your fate, change it.' And I realized I didn't like my fate. I didn't like my crappy job as a barista. I didn't like living at my parents' house. I didn't like the shoes that were killing my ankles. Most importantly, getting back together with Calhoun wasn't going to fix any of those things. So I worked. I worked on myself. I eventually got a job at a law firm. I moved into my own apartment, and I found a limelight for myself. But I still wonder, despite all."

Amy looked at her and watched as Arlene took a deep breath. "The girl he fell in love with was the girl I had worked so hard to become again. And I could have been her all along. Instead, I lost myself because I wanted to make sure at least one of us was getting what we wanted. I grew so distant from my own heart, I couldn't hear it even when it was yelling at me."

"So Amy, do what you have to do to get past this. Know that it's okay to be sad, and it's okay to cry. Hell, it's even okay to eat your heart out with Ben and Jerry's. But it's not okay to do something because you are hoping for a response from an outside force. You have no control over those. You may have that movie time moment where you walk in the door and everyone's eyes are on you, but chances are you won't. You can get all dressed up, and people might not even notice. Nothing might change. But you might. And it's that right there that should be the only thing that matters to you "

"Arlene?"

"Yes, Boo?"

"Will you go shopping with me in a couple of days?"

"Duh," She winked at Amy, and laid her head on her shoulder. "This too shall pass."

And as Amy looked at the sight around them, and thought about the nights events, she believed that Arlene was right. Time wasn't passing by as slowly as it used to.

**A/N- Reviews let me know what is working and what isn't. So feel free to leave a note. I really really appreciate it. **


	10. The Makeover Recalibration

**A/N- THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEWS. You guys made my life. And all the guests that took the time, thank you as well. I am excited to hear people are enjoying it. I should have updated sooner but I have been out of town for my best friends wedding. This chapter was written and ready to go but I wasn't near a computer. As always thanks to my best beta ever. Oh- And next chapter You Know Who comes home. (Not Voldermort... he hasn't been to California that I know of). **

Arlene had only been at the mall for ten minutes, and she already felt out of place, which was unusual, because she's never felt out of place surrounded by brand new shoes, skirts, and swimsuits before. Racks of clothes that smelled like department store perfumes were usually a welcome haven to her. No. It was the group dynamic that utterly confused her.

It more than confused her - it worried her. Amy worshipped Penny. That much was for certain. She looked to the blonde to everything. Whether it was what car they wanted to take, or what store they should go to, Amy turned to Penny for approval. And in some ways, Arlene could understand it.

From what she understood, Penny was her first friend. Her _bestie_, and that held a lot of weight. She was also the first girl Amy seemed to have a girl crush on. That part, Arlene really understood. Hell, she could still remember hers. It was Maven Hareweather, who lived in the same neighborhood as Arlene, and had been three years older. She could still remember her perfect brown ponytail, the way boys in the neighborhood slowed down pedaling past her house, the way parents at barbeques always talked about how mature she seemed for her age. Arlene had wanted to be her or if she couldn't, she'd settle for being her best friend. Being three years younger, she never said more than six words to the girl. But Maven's pedestal held an importance in her youth that could never be discredited. She had chosen many hair styles, clothes, and even boyfriends with the thought of it being _Maven-approved_. Seeing Amy fawn over her _bestie_, she got it. She understood perfectly. But the thing she didn't understand was why it had lasted this long.

Penny was nice enough. Granted, she had only said a couple of words to Arlene so far, but none of them were unwelcoming. She was pretty, the type of girl that used it to her advantage in getting things she wanted. She had been a queen bee her entire life. Arlene liked confidence, and couldn't fault her for it. But, as far as role models went, Arlene couldn't figure out why two accomplished, educated, smart women followed her lead. She was an actress in her thirties who had never landed any roles, didn't have a backup plan or a college education (whether or not she had a full high school one was questionable as well), was bordering on becoming an alcoholic, and dressed like she was going to dorm mixers every night.

"How about this, Ames?"

Penny was holding up a tight bandage dress. The type of dress that hugged every part of the body so tight it both acted as spandex, a bra, and a boa constrictor. She watched as Amy's eyes flashed in fear. And they were back to the problem that had been happening since the beginning.

The girls didn't understand Amy. They were trying to take Amy and mold her into a brand new person overnight, but kept forgetting the personal characteristics that made Amy dress the way she did.

Bernadette was trying. "Look at these cute jeans. These would keep your legs covered too!"

But Amy wouldn't wear jeans. She could see Amy's head spinning. And Arlene knew she was seconds away from losing her. They needed to get her back on the tracks- and fast.

"Hey, Farrah," Arlene whispered coming up to Amy. "Breathe. Remember: This isn't about drastic change. This is about finding you clothes that fit. What do you typically look for when shopping? Skirts and sweaters, right?"

Amy nodded, looking out of place surrounded by racks of clothes that had been made in the same decade as her.

"Okay. Let's get you some just plain skirts okay. Stuff you can use all the time, for work and every day. Sounds good?"

Amy nodded again, but the look of terror hadn't left her eyes. Arlene could see Penny and Bernadette coming closer, so she rushed to find something before they could further push the girl off the edge. Arlene quickly rushed to find a black skirt in Amy's size, and when she did, it was a pencil skirt. Not too tight that it would make her uncomfortable and went a few lengths beyond her knees, but different enough that it might spark something. She held it out to Amy and Amy nodded, before taking it.

"Ames, you should get a tight dress like the ones Bernie and I wore to the club. That way, Sheldon or your new boy won't be able to keep their hands off of you." Penny winked.

"I think Amy is just looking for some new skirts and sweaters." Arlene said, looking at Amy to make sure she wasn't wrong. But for her part, Amy's face was blank.

"I thought the whole point of this shopping trip was to get a new sexy wardrobe?" Bernadette pouted.

"Yeah. I thought Amy wanted to change up her _frumpy_ wardrobe to _vixen_."

Amy looked between the girls desperately as if waiting for someone to give her a clear answer on what exactly she was doing.

"Amy needs new clothes. She has lost a lot of weight. Our goal of today is to buy her clothes that make her feel pretty, but also comfortable. If she doesn't feel comfortable, she won't wear them. So how about this, Amy you choose clothes you like and we will help guide you with our opinions?"

Without answering, Amy wandered over to the rack and found a skirt with some odd floral and flannel print on it that looked like a picnic table cover mixed with her grandmothers drapes.

"Hm, how about we instead stick with non patterned skirts?"

"Isn't that boring?" It was the first words Amy had spoken since they arrived. But it was something.

"How about this, we can find some bright-colored skirts to spice it up. Or some patterned sweaters or shirts to go with the plain skirts?"

Amy looked to Penny, who was already on board with Arlene's idea and holding up a bright red skirt with a tan belt. It wasn't tight, and it went past the knees. Amy's eyes took in the skirt, and from the judgmental look in them it was clear the red was too scandalous for Amy. Arlene could only imagine what saying of Amy's mother was running through her mind. But when Amy looked at the three girls staring at her, she took it in her hands to try on.

And so it went, the girls holding up things, and negotiating. If all three, except Amy, agreed, then she had to try it on. But they were to pick nothing outside of Amy's comfort zone. They stopped trying to dress Amy like a doll, or worse, like they would themselves. Little by little, Amy was willing to try anything they handed her as long as it stayed around the knees in length, had sleeves, and didn't show too much cleavage.

Amy started smiling more with each reveal out of the dressing room. Even playing with her hair on certain picks they all found to be more agreeable. There were a couple of items Arlene had to sneak out of the dressing room and hide before Amy could try to talk the group into them. Like a bright orange sweater and a pair of neon green tights. There were other items Amy even refused to leave the dressing room wearing. But Arlene did have to raise her eyebrows when, as they were leaving Forever 21 with bags of things they had gotten Amy to agree to, she saw her fingers trail along a very short and tight black dress that did not fit into "Amy approved clothing" in the least. When Amy looked up and caught Arlene's eyebrow raise, Amy pulled away from the fabric like it had burned her, and followed Penny to their next location.

*&*&*&*&*&)))))))**&*&*^^$%$%$%$_()(**&&^^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%

"Which bra are you going to wear?" Arlene finished her mascara, perfecting a smoky eye on the first try. "I personally like the _whimsical_ cheetah print you picked out."

"Oooh! Wear the black lace one! It seriously pushes those babies up." Penny said.

"Do you want to be an animal or a seductress?" Bernadette asked, pushing her bangs to the side like Arlene had suggested.

Arlene caught Amy's eye in the mirror and made a cat meowing gesture. The other three girls all sat in front of Arlene's giant vanity, dabbing, adding, and smudging away with the makeup spread before them. The curling and flat irons were all plugged in behind it, right next to the stack of magazines Penny kept picking up and browsing every couple of minutes or so.

"I don't know why it matters what bra I wear underneath. No one is going to see it."

"You never know." Penny flipped a couple pages of Cosmo, looking for the quizzes.

"If you want to feel sexy, you have to start at the very foundation," Arlene smiled and Bernadette turned to her handing her the flat iron. She started straightening the back of Bernadette's hair while Amy studied her friend in the mirror. Bernadette looked different with her hair straight and her bangs parted. It made her seem mature and sophisticated.

"Besides, it's makeover night." Arlene exclaimed. Penny grunted while flopping down on Arlene's bed, but everyone ignored her.

Penny had done Amy's makeup before, but it had never been a big event. That had just been some extra blush and eyeliner. Her job had been to just sit on the couch and hand her Kleenex and try not to cry when the mascara wand got close to her eye.

This was like something from a movie - the smell of perfumes lingering in the air, makeup on every counter, girls asking each other for tips. If Amy didn't know any better she would have said their next step would have been Prom, or some type of awards. This was the very scene she imagined in high school when she was snuggled up by herself watching "Pretty in Pink".

Arlene came to the side of the bed, where Amy was. "If you don't like something, tell me."

"Oh she will," Penny said, tossing the magazine to the side. "She will ask you to take the fresh nail polish off her fingers."

"Perfect." She held out her hand to help Amy off the bed and Amy let herself be led over to a chair. Her glasses were removed. She felt the cold makeup on her skin, being dabbed and spread across, watching in the mirror as it covered the red marks from her eyebrows recent wax. Arlene curled her eyelashes, as Amy squirmed. She carefully lined Amy's eyes with dark brown, holding her in place with one hand. After a couple of minutes she started putting hot rollers in her hair.

"Um, I don't know about this." Amy said, recalling the last time her mom had put hot rollers in her hair - she had come out looking like a mix between Shirley Temple and a poodle. The kids at the science fair kept pulling her curls and woofing at her. She had a feeling men at a bar wouldn't do the same. Nevertheless, she wasn't eager to relive the hair style.

"I do. Besides, it's just one night." Arlene continued fussing with the hot rollers. Penny rolled her eyes, and got up to go to the bathroom and change into her dress. Bernadette bounced after her. Arlene finished putting Amy's hair up and handed her a mascara wand.

"It would be best if you did it yourself." She looked in the mirror, smiling at Amy before she ran her fingers through the roots of her own hair, and pushed the blonde hair up towards the part. Amy took a couple of moments experimenting with the mascara. Her eyes watered less when she did it herself, but she also made a couple of smudges, unable to clearly see without her glasses. Arlene took a paper towel and fixed the smudges for her after she was done.

Bernadette poked out her head from behind the bathroom door. "Arlene?"

"Yes, Bernie?" Arlene asked. Amy wondered that she was using a nickname so fast into meeting Bernadette, but was also herself getting used to being called Farrah, and Boo on a normal basis by her. If Bernadette thought it was too soon into their friendship, she didn't show it.

"You said I should wear my dress without a sweater for tonight right?" Arlene nodded.

"Hey grab Amy the blue bodycon dress she bought today. And her matching white lace bra and panties." Bernadette nodded and Amy felt the temperature in the room rising.

Soon enough, Bernadette came out in a red dress, pulling off the price tag. It was a tube dress, designed to hug every curve of the small blonde's body, but hid them at the same time with a sheer red neckline rising around her neck. Even without Amy's glasses, she could tell Bernadette looked beautiful. And seeing the girl Amy considered to be the least beautiful out of three, looking like she could be in a Vogue pages, made Amy's stomach churn. This was a bad idea.

"Now Bernie, come help me decide what to wear. Amy, put that on."

They left the room, and Amy put on the underwear and the dress. The dress was soft on her hands. It came low to the knee, had sleeves on it, and wasn't very low cut. But still, with all of the fuss, it was still the most sensual piece of clothing Amy had ever owned. It was tighter than she was used to, and the sweetheart neck line just invited boys to look. When the dress was on, she looked at the mirror, but all she could see was a fuzzy shape. Amy looked away quickly, afraid to face what a complete sham she was.

She wasn't a _pretty_ girl. She was a _smart_ girl.

_You should be proud of that. Do you think Madam Curie spent her days worrying about whether or not her stomach was 'flat as a board.'_

But that didn't mean she didn't want to be a pretty girl.

_You would give up your superior intelligence to merely fall prey to society's need to be aesthetically pleasing? Where would we be if Einstein had worried more about his hair and less about the general theory of relativity?_

Not that the point mattered, but even though she could play pretend all she wanted, it wouldn't magically change her. No, instead of going out tonight Amy should spend her night playing upon her strengths.

_Going out tonight will only lead to increased feelings of inadequacy from girls that don't even know the difference between mitochondria and mittens. Might I suggest forgetting this silly makeover and doing something academically fulfilling?_

Mental Sheldon was right. Amy started pulling the hot rollers out of her hair one by one. She tried to locate all of her clothes, but all she had gathered was her sweater when Arlene walked in.

"Wow, Farrah. You're right." Her eyes were big.

"I just think I am going to,"

She walked over, putting Amy's new glasses on her face and played with Amy's hair.

"I was going to leave them in longer, but I think the whole messy, loose wavy thing works way better with this dress."

As Amy's world came more into focus, Arlene turned her to face her reflection. Amy braced herself for the disappointment, but the girl staring back at didn't look like a fraud. She looked _pretty_. The dress pulled, tight enough to show a general outline of a body, but not so tight that it looked painted on. The blue made Amy's pale skin pop, and accentuated the dark blue in her new ray ban glasses. Her face didn't look harsh with the blush and eye makeup, but instead her eyes looked wider, and her face looked more alert. Her hair looked messy and perfectly crafted at the same time. But the thing she was most surprised by was that she still looked like her own self.

She could still see her own eyes staring back at her. How could she look the same but different at the same time? For the first time in her life, she didn't curse her nose for being a little larger than she would like, her chin for being more pronounced than other girls', or her brown hair for being a drab color.

Somehow all those things worked together. No she wasn't Arlene with her Bambi blue eyes or Penny with her gold streaked hair. But she was Amy. And for the first time in her life, she was proud of that.

"Damn." Amy looked up at Bernadette and Penny who were standing in the doorway looking at her. She watched as the girl in the mirror smiled as she did.

Bernadette wolf-whistled. "Sheldon is an idiot."

Penny nodded in agreement.

"Wait!" Arlene scrambled unto the bed. "You never told us about your second date!"

Penny and Bernadette both gravitated towards the bed and looked at Amy expectantly as well.

"It was good."

Penny shook her head. "Oh hell no. You are going to have to give us more than that."

"Yeah. We don't even know anything about him at all. Just that you've been out with him twice." Bernadette agreed.

Amy looked at Arlene. In the past week, they had become closer. They had eaten lunch together almost every day, and she had spent every night she wasn't with Raj with her. Because of it she now knew Arlene took singing lessons, was an angry drunk, and had a crush on her boss.

Arlene, in turn, knew every detail of every date with Regen. She half-expected her new friend to plunge ahead and give them all the details but she instead just looked at her like she hadn't heard any of it the first time around. Amy actually wished she would barge in and start answering the questions for her.

"Oh. He's nice." Amy said, folding her clothes beside her.

"That's it?" Penny asked.

"Well, he's tall."

"How tall?" Bernadette raised an eyebrow.

"A little taller than Sheldon."

"What does he do?"

"He's a pediatrician."

"Aww. So he loves kids." Penny smiled.

"Yeah, yeah. Great for him. Now get back to the physical description." Bernadette growled.

"He's handsome," Amy offered, but she hated that the end of her sentence her voice went up. Like it was a question, or she wasn't sure. "Didn't Raj tell you already what he looks like?"

"Yes, but Raj once told me my mailman looked like Ryan Gosling. Do you have a picture?" Penny looked at her expectantly.

Amy got out her phone, pulling up her newest Facebook friend. His profile picture was of him on stage with his band mates. His sandy blonde hair was messy and unkempt, but his smile was wide.

"Wow."

"So?" Amy was surprised by how eager she was to hear their opinions.

"Well, Raj was right. He does kind of look like that guy from that show."

"Could you vague that up for me?" Arlene laughed, but Penny was pulling out her own phone.

"That show about space cowboys the boys are always going on about. He kinda looks like one of the voice actors on Frozen?" Penny pulled up a picture of a young Alan Tudyk.

"You're right." Bernadette agreed looking at both pictures. "But with Michael Cera hair."

"Is that a good thing?" Amy asked.

Penny's lips jutted out, and she raised and lowered her shoulder. "He's dorky cute. I can see it." She continued flipping through photos on her phone. "Wait. He was in the peace corps?"

Amy nodded.

"You mean to tell me he's a doctor, runs marathons, was in the peace corps, in a band, and the best you can tell us about him is that he is _tall and nice_?" She looked down at the pictures her eyebrows raised. "And that body? Not bad Amy. Not bad."

Bernadette took the phone from Amy and whistled. She scrolled to the next picture. "Oh. He's religious. Did you know that?"

"Yes he said he used to be Mormon."

"Interesting." Bernadette said, handing the phone back to Amy.

The screen was flashing a picture of Regen in a suit with a name tag on, surrounded by other men. Unlike the time Amy shoved her picture of Sheldon in their faces, she was quick to switch her phone back to its neutral purple background.

"What?"

"Well I have an Aunt that is Mormon. Did he tell you how affiliated with the church he was?"

"No it didn't come up."

Penny tilted her head. "Well did he drink on the dates?"

"No. But he was a designated driver."

"Did he curse at all?" Arlene perked up hearing information that was new to her.

"Not that I remember."

"Was he wearing garments?" Penny asked and everyone looked at her, surprised. "What? I have seen Big Love. I know things." She looked at Amy weird, and Amy knew what she was really asking.

"Big Love is based on the Fundamentalist LDS church, not the one he was affiliated with. So no, he doesn't practice polygamy as far as I know. And I don't remember about the garments. Not that I noticed. Why?"

"Did he try to kiss you? Or do _other_ things with you?"

"To the kissing, I don't know," That was a crummy lie. "But the other things? I'm not following."

"Well, sweetie, the thing is, you might be going from one sexless relationship to another." Penny looked at her carefully to gauge her reaction.

"And you think that is a problem?"

Penny's eyes got wide. "Well wasn't that a major problem in your relationship with Sheldon?"

"I seem to recall many nights where you came over bitching about how Sheldon wasn't fulfilling your needs," Bernadette agreed. "Are you sure you want to entertain the idea of dating someone who won't help you with your urges?"

Amy thought about Sheldon, the way he always held her at arm's length. She remembered his clenched jaw every time he kissed her, and the way he rolled his eyes every time she extended her hand to him.

"It's different."

"How?"

"Well with Sheldon, he was celibate because he didn't want to touch me, not because he couldn't. Also, there was no guarantee he would ever have sex with me. At least with religion as a factor there would have been a timeline. Marriage would have been the goal instead."

"So you are saying that if Sheldon was abstinent because of religion you wouldn't have pushed him?" Penny asked.

"I would have stayed quiet on the physical part and let the relationship develop more emotionally." Amy agreed, wondering if that's maybe what she should have done the entire time.

"But Amy's right. There is a difference between religious abstinence and one based on withholding. Regen will be keeping from deflowering Amy because he thinks it is right, not because he just simply doesn't want to." Arlene looked at Amy.

"But that's not to say he won't make her feel just as bad about her urges."

"You're right. But somewhere deep inside, I know Regen wants to touch me eventually. He has made it clear he finds me desirable. He wants to hold my hand, and as far as I can tell, he wouldn't object to kissing me. If Sheldon had a reason for not having sex, besides simply not desiring me, my body, or intimacy with me, I would have waited forever."

Forever. She would have waited forever.

The room went silent. And Amy felt like she could see what they were thinking. Bernadette was pitying her. Penny was trying to find a way to defend Sheldon. Arlene's face showed no sympathy, only determination, and Amy appreciated that.

"Well no boy is going to look at you and think of abstinence tonight. Sheldon missed out on a sexbomb. It's his loss. This night is about drinking some drinks with little umbrellas in them, dancing until we can't feel our toes, and celebrating what foxes we are."

"Preach, sister." Bernadette piped up before running to grab some shoes, Penny went to the bathroom, and Arlene went to grab some lipstick. Amy remained looking at the reflection of herself, still surprised by the girl staring back at her.

_Amy, Amy, Amy. What is happening to you?_

Amy didn't know. But she liked it, whatever it was.


	11. The Welcome Home Reflection

**A/N SORRY THIS HAS TAKEN SO LONG. A lot of terrible stuff, including a broken computer and a former boss refusing to pay me, have been going on. I could use prayers. As always a HUGE FATTY thanks to my wonderful beta. She is awesome sauce. And an even bigger thank you to you guys for reading... so uh it's the moment you have been waiting for. And Sheldon is home. Remember reviews make me bring them together faster... **

Sheldon had no idea why he was _there_, of all places. But, for some reason, the second he had unloaded his suitcases into his old apartment, he felt antsy. Leonard and Penny weren't to be found, and the apartment was seemed surprisingly "untouched" from the last time he left it. There weren't any of Penny's undergarments or shoes lying around, not even food wrappers or old food containers.

Looking around at the carefully arranged books, the pristine brown couch, and the cups lined up in a row with labels on the bottom, he felt something. Something he had shut off for the last two months of his life, rebooted in that second. _His schedule_.

According to schedule, he should be singing some type of song at the moment while Amy strung out chords on her harp. _Karaoke night_. With that in mind, he somehow had ended up _here_, a tawdry karaoke bar people frequented _for fun_. But Sheldon was certain that this was not his version of fun.

If eardrums could bleed at sounds produced by the human mouth alone, he would have already died of blood loss. Yet, no matter how many times the waiter came by asking if he wanted anything more than a diet coke, the couple next to him glared for taking up an entire table, or the girls on stage sang off-key, he didn't feel the need to get up from his seat. Something about the noise, the crowd, the camaraderie among and between the people - it welcomed him back home.

Not considering the fact he'd never entered the room before, he felt a familiarity with it that he couldn't put his finger on, which only increased when he saw Raj on stage singing an off-key version of California Girls. He watched his Indian friend with amusement as he saw him hold the microphone tightly to his chest and bounced up and down with every word he sang.

Despite the fact that he loathed to admit it, he had missed his strange friend. When Raj was finished, Sheldon tried to follow his descent offstage to his place in the crowd, hoping to see all of his friends at the end of the table, only to be disappointed as he lost the Indian man in the sea of people.

So the night continued, guests were singing tunes Sheldon had never heard before - mostly pop songs that both Penny and Raj were known to blast in their cars. So, when a familiar tune came on, he found himself tapping the beat on the table despite his profound aversion to it.

He had once told Missy he hated every song she played on her pointless contraption of a boom box growing up, but the song Tainted Love was now a respite from songs about booties shaking and buying people drinks. He looked at the girl in a bright red pencil skirt with a cream sheer button-up shirt on stage. Deciding that she was not worth his time at first glance, he looked away to try and see if he could spot Raj in the crowd.

But as the girl started singing, Sheldon found his head whipping back to the stage in utter surprise. He knew that voice. Sure enough, on stage was Amy. She had a different pair of spectacles on, her hair straight but not pulled to the side with a clip, and new but _impractical_ clothing.

He wondered where had her layers gone and how she would handle the cold now that she was slimmer. He couldn't help but ask himself how she became slimmer. _Is she eating properly?_ His head filled with questions, but this time, he didn't have equations to help him solve for what was happening. _Had Amy been taken over by pod people?_

Her voice was soothing as it always has been. Despite the fact that she had never sung him Soft Kitty, her voice had always been his ideal choice to hear if he was to get sick again. Firmly planting his gaze on her, she looked shy and out of place on stage. She merely sang the words in front of her, holding the microphone with what he could assume were sweaty hands by the way she kept adjusting.

When there was a double banging noise in the song, a table of men with bright pink tank tops and spiky hair banged on the table as a sign of encouragement. He watched Amy break out into a smile and sing a little louder out of confidence. He heard Raj scream something, from a place he couldn't pinpoint, and it seemed that Amy heard it as well. Even though it was close to the end of the song, she let herself start really singing, washing away any monotone and reservation. In the end, Sheldon got up from his table, ignoring the couple that rushed to grab it the second his hind quarters left the chair. He went to follow Amy offstage, hoping she would lead to their entire group. But, as he followed her, he saw her approach a table with only Raj waiting for her.

Raj whooped and hollered when he saw her, which made Amy laugh. Somehow, the sound of Amy laughing made Sheldon's chest feel a pang of hurt. He ransacked his eidetic memory to find the last time he heard her melodious laugh, but he had difficulty doing so.

At that same moment, Raj grabbed her hand and spun her in a playful circle. Sheldon watched Amy's hair swish with her body, catching in the dim blue lights around them. He couldn't comprehend as to why in the world Raj and Amy would be spending karaoke night together. Whatever he imagined coming home to, this was definitely not it.

(*(*(*$^W*&$*&$*&$)_ ($*$*%&%&%&(#$#(*) *(

"Do the Doctor and Rose ever remind you of you and Sheldon?"

Amy looked up from the glossy pictures of food. "Huh?"

Raj was still watching the credits, though the next episode hadn't started yet. "I just have always wondered…. Why Sheldon?"

Amy turned the page in her cookbook. "'Why Sheldon' what?"

"I mean, why Sheldon? I get that he is tall, and could be considered handsome. But he's also difficult, particular, and bat crap crazy." Raj watched as Amy scrunched her nose. "I am sorry. If it is too soon to talk about it…"

A new episode started. And Amy was glad for the disruption. Both watched as Rose and the Doctor were separated on a foreign planet. The Doctor going to, what he assumes is his death. They watched the little man on the screen say the famous words 'If you talk to Rose - just tell her... tell her... oh, she knows.'

Amy was riveted. She knew the answer to Raj's first question- yes she felt a strange kinship to the Doctor and his companion.

Rose and The Doctor was a love that was never discussed, never acted upon, but was there. They made a team, a unit. He had opened up his little blue box and his world to her. He effectively made her world bigger. They both changed, adapted, and grew together in ways they didn't anticipate. But they never crossed the line they had drawn in the sand for the nature of their relationship. They never did more than grasp hands. Yes, Amy could relate.

Why Sheldon? That was a beast of a whole different nature. It was a question she both couldn't answer, and had too many answers to at the same time.

Every place she went she patted her pockets and rechecked her purse for her phone, keys, and required text books. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had lost something in the past couple of months. And it took weeks for her to figure it out. He was missing. He had been gone for awhile, but the part of her heart she had etched to fit him in was now empty. So instead she tried to fill the Tardis shaped hole that he left with other things. Research projects, new clothes, dinners with Raj, and sleepovers with Arlene all filled around the corners, but even with all of them shoved together they couldn't fill all the cracks. No matter how perfectly she tried to arrange her schedule, she still found moments of emptiness with nothing to do but miss him.

Arlene would be so disappointed. She wanted Amy to adapt a 'I'm better off without him' mentality. As did Raj. Raj wanted her to be free from any heart ache. He wanted her to catch up with him in the rebound schedule. But Amy didn't want that yet.

Amy also didn't want to go back. She didn't want to give in to her emotions. She wanted to be strong, independent. And she was. Day by day, steps at a time, Amy found that she was starting to believe in herself. She liked herself more than ever. She had friends, a budding career, and when she looked at herself in a mirror she felt pretty. The problem was everyone seemed to think the more she liked herself the less she would like Sheldon.

But it didn't work like that. And Amy had a feeling it would never work like that. She had made a decision- she was done putting Sheldon first. Her own needs were just as important. There would never be a time where she would go back to being his secondary. No, she had to put herself first.

But that didn't stop her from loving him with the place he had built in her heart. And she had a feeling he would always reside there. So even with the knowledge that she might never find another great love, Amy knew that given the choice- she would pick her own happiness over his. Little did she know how soon that resolve was going to be tested.


	12. The Laboratory Show Down

Quincy loudly popped her gum again. Amy wanted nothing more than to pull the pink gum out of her mouth, and throw it in the trashcan beside the door. Knowing that she had to maintain composure, she instead took a deep breath.

"There are actually no pain receptors in the brain itself, and there are no brains in your hind quarters. So, your assertion that I am 'hurting your brain with lame ass brains' is impossible."

Quincy rolled her eyes and took out her phone. If Amy's intuition was right, she would probably text her friends and tell them how stupid her 'older sister' was. Or she would text Raj, because for some reason, the fifteen-year-old adored him. She hung on his every word, laughed at every joke, and even tugged her skirt hem higher when he was around.

Amy wished she had gotten Raj's protégé instead. She was sure ten-year-old Markus would love to spend a day in her lab surrounded by microscopes, brain specimens, and a willing teacher. The only thing Quincy seemed interested in learning was the wi-fi password to her lab and whether or not Raj and Markus would accompany them.

"Anyway, as I was saying, the frontal lobe is the one responsible for,"

"Knock knock." Amy looked up and saw Regen outside her open door.

He was donning a blazer with a white polo shirt underneath it and a dark pair of jeans. She knew he had to be on lunch break from his own work. In her opinion it wasn't very professional for a doctor to be wearing denim. However, any discomfort she felt about his attire was soon replaced with eagerness when she saw the bouquet of tulips he was holding.

"You brought me flowers?" He gave her an affirmative nod, and handed them over to her.

"I would have gotten a vase as well, but I didn't know what type of vase you would like. I didn't know what flowers you like either, but I took a guess. You'll probably want to put them in water and mix in a crushed tablet of aspirin so they stay alive longer. Then again, you probably knew that already." He awkwardly scratched at his nape.

Amy looked at the yellow tulips.

The only flower Amy had ever gotten from a boy was when a cousin sent a bouquet to her mother. He thought that she too had passed away in the accident with the bridal party. But, the 'I'm sorry you're dead' bouquet paled in comparison to a boy actually bringing her flowers. Question was: Why _did_ he bring her flowers?

"In your last text you said you were busy and stressed, and I thought I might come try to cheer you up." _Her last text._ The one as to why she was ignoring him.

School and her job _did_ keep her busy and stressed. But she had been avoiding the very nice but equally-confusing Regen, because she didn't know what to do about him.

Every time Amy was with him, she kept discovering why she should be in love with him. He was charitable, he wanted them to do a duet with the harp and the bass, and he wanted to meet her mother. The list could go on and on. It was on replay in her head that she should convince her heart to love him. But the mere thought warred with another voice. A voice which she couldn't distinguish how much of it was Sheldon, and how much of it was her own subconscious.

Regen ties his shoelaces only once, not double knotting them, so they always came loose. His plan for the end of the earth was just to "go with it." He wanted to hold hands everywhere they went and didn't take into account what the exact temperatures of their hands were, if it was dictated by social convention, how many neurons were active in the position of their entwined hands, and whether it might cause extra moisture on their palms. Heck, the man didn't even know what string theory was.

Amy knew that those things didn't make up the big picture. They weren't the qualities that should matter. But it was those small things that nagged at her brain over and over that they droned out her demands to love him. What was worse was that she wasn't sure if it was because she cared about those things, or because they were just reminders that he wasn't Sheldon.

He _wasn't_ Sheldon. He brought her flowers - yellow, sunny, beautiful, impractical, allergy-inducing, _but _romantic flowers.

She brought them up to her nose, as he introduced himself to Quincy. They didn't smell like anything, but Amy imagined herself to be a protagonist of a movie - getting flowers from boys, able to bring them to her nose and smile whimsically into the camera, and being one step closer to her happily ever after.

"Basically, mom couldn't afford a tutor." Quincy popped her gum again.

"Well, you're very lucky to have a brilliant scientist as a tutor, or even a big sister." He offered.

_Brilliant scientist_. It's what Sheldon had called her over the phone to a room full of girls around Quincy's age.

Still, Sheldon never brought her flowers.

"Hey, Regen?" She placed the flowers on the counter.

"Yeah?"

"Do you still want to do something Friday night? I think my schedule cleared up."

Before Regen could even get the chance to open his mouth to respond, a series of knocks resonated throughout the room.

_Knock knock knock._ "Amy?" _Knock knock knock_. "Amy?" _Knock knock knock_. "Amy?"

Sheldon was standing in her doorway.

She was expecting Sheldon to make an appearance at some point. As to when exactly, she didn't have the slightest idea if it was going to be years from now, or just days, but she knew that at some point, he would tie her up like another loose end in his life.

She didn't know what she would feel when it happened. She expected sadness, longing, but looking at his fresh tan, his wrinkle-free Flash shirt, and the smug smile he had on his face, all Amy could feel was a pulsing need to slap him in the face. Longing was replaced by a bitterness Amy had never allowed herself to feel.

"Amy, on the doorway outside, it says that this room is only suited for a capacity of two. We seem to have four people in here. It isn't safe to disregard the number of people the fire guard recommends for each room. Also, seeing as you don't work at UCLA anymore, thanks for informing me by the way, I need to talk to someone about how to get a parking ticket validated for Leonard," He waited a second for the information to seep in and then looked at Regen. "Did you not hear what I said about the room capacity?"

"Excuse me? You are?" Regen asked Sheldon, eyeing him from head to toe.

Sheldon brought himself to full height. "I am her boyfriend."

"_Ex_-boyfriend." Amy corrected. But he continued on as if she hadn't interrupted.

"Who are you?"

"Her soon-to-be boyfriend," Regen sounded confident until he looked over and saw Amy's wide eyes and a hand covering her mouth. "Well, I hope. I mean we hadn't talked about it but I figured that,"

Amy couldn't find the words to speak. Regen was looking at her like a lost puppy. Sheldon had turned to her with his mouth open in shock waiting to hear her response, and Quincy had never been more interested in Amy in her entire life before.

"The Indian, the hick, and the robot. How will she ever choose?" Quincy was laughing to herself, but everyone ignored her.

"I think that's something we should discuss later, in private." Was all Amy could manage to tell Regen. She watched as his shoulders sagged in disappointment. But if he was in fact disappointed, his face gave nothing away. It was the epitome of understanding.

"That's fair. Well uh, I guess I will leave you to sort this out." He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, despite Sheldon's sharp inhale of breath. Quincy giggled, and Amy cursed that the girl didn't giggle once during her carefully planned out lecture on the silliness of synapses, but somehow found this situation to be amusing.

"Sounds good." Amy agreed.

"I will see you on Friday?" Amy nodded as he flashed her a lost look. "Oh and don't forget the aspirin." He pointed at the tulips then looked back at her. His eyes then looked around the entire room, as if he was looking for something. Although, whatever it could be, Amy had no idea. His head bobbed a couple of times before eventually leaving the room.

She could feel Sheldon's eyes on her, but she walked across the room and picked up the beakers she needed, bringing them over to Quincy.

"Amy? I must say, I expected this kind of drama from a girl like Penny, but this? I always saw you as the faithful type."

"I didn't cheat on you Sheldon."

"Oh? So my eyes just happened to deceive me, correct? And that gangly fellow wasn't just delivering flowers and kissing the cheek of my woman?"

She almost laughed that Sheldon described someone other than himself as gangly, and the fact that he was calling her _his_ woman.

"We aren't dating anymore Sheldon. I sent you a termination notice through email." Amy set the beakers on a paper towel, so that the glass bottoms lined up with the edge.

"You know that the relationship agreement states that the termination letter has to be signed with the other party watching, as not to incur forgery or deception from outside sources."

"You weren't here. I signed it. It's done." She could tell Sheldon was fidgeting beside her, but she refused to look at him, instead walking to the side of the room to grab a vial of hydrogen peroxide.

"No, not officially." His voice was soft. The old Amy might have pitied him, but not her, not anymore.

"Well I don't think anything was done officially from the moment you left without any further contact or explanation. You missed scheduled date night, Skype calls, and all other obligations set forth within the Agreement, thus nullifying the whole document. Now, if you could please leave. I've got more important things to do."

"But Amy," He was interrupted when Quincy's phone beeped and the words Amy had just said echoed and repeated to the room.

Amy threw her a quizzical look, but the girl just shrugged. "Snapchat."

Amy forced herself to look at Sheldon. She looked at his blue eyes and willed herself not to feel any pain or hurt.

"Do you need anything else?" She watched Sheldon blink as he mentally tried to piece together what was happening. He scanned the room, his eyes taking in Quincy watching avidly, Amy staring blankly at him, and the dirty beakers in the sink, until his eyes fell on the tulips on the desk.

"Yes. I hoped that it wouldn't come to this, but if you are set on ending our relationship, please do it through the proper channels and sign on the line."

He went through his backpack, a stack of papers in his hand, sorting through them all for the one he was looking for. When he finally succeeded in sorting them out, he placed it in front of her - a termination letter. The same one she had seen on his iPad, months earlier. She saw the line where she was supposed to sign. She looked at the pen he was offering her.

"No."

"No? You aren't terminating our relationship?" All eagerness came back to his voice. She couldn't risk trying to make sense of it, or all her resolve would fail.

"No, I am terminating our relationship. It's over Dr Cooper, with or without a signature on a piece of paper." Amy filled a beaker with water.

She didn't see his face fall, but she heard the silence that followed. "If you are dead set on ending it, I can't see why a signature on a page should stop you. Unless...You don't really want to end it and are instead trying to trick me using reverse psychology," He gasped. "Amy Farrah Fowler, you vixen." Even with her back turned, she could hear the smile in his voice.

"No reverse psychology. The entire relationship was fit for your terms. It's only proper that the termination should be on mine. Good day, Dr Cooper." Amy shoved him out the door and shut it in his face. To her surprise, no knocking followed.

Amy felt her blood pounding with endorphins from all the drama that had just occurred. Overall, she felt better about her decision than she had imagined. The failure to sign the paper was a stroke of last-minute genius on her part. With the final piece not completed, Sheldon would toss and turn at night, unable to sleep. He would find himself with an urge to tear his face apart, to scream, and to do something impulsive just to correct the situation.

_Good. Let him._ It was only right that he had a feel of what he did to her heart.

"Damn. Who knew being a scientist freak would be such a turn-on for men?"

Amy looked over at Quincy, who popped her gum again.

"Stay in school, Quincy. Education will always make more sense than affairs of the heart."

**A/N- Reviews make me happy. And a big thank you to the guests who have been commenting. And an even bigger thank you to my freaking fantastic beta. **


	13. The Invite Paradigm

Sheldon had learned a lot while he was away.

He could have taken a scheduled journey. He could have travelled to Texas and spent the summer with his Meemaw. He could have visited Beverly in New York and have his brain analyzed. He could have gone to Oregon and played bongos with the hippies. He could have travelled to all the scientific museums in the United States and tried to numb his stale career with other people's findings. He could have even stayed on trains, traveling from one state to another, his life always moving with the chugging of the wheels on tracks.

He could've done them all, but he didn't.

He had instead boarded the train that day on a whim. However, not even 24 hours into his trip, he was bored. Sheldon liked his job. He liked being grounded by the University, no matter how bad it sounded like, because it forced him to work harder. He liked trying to solve the entire universe. It gave his mind things to focus on. He liked everything having a place where it belonged. And that included him.

And so he had gotten out his computer, contacted local universities about doing a sabbatical with them. Cal Tech had allowances for people to put their work on hold for Sabbaticals and come back with little questions asked. He taught a small class at Stanford on Monday nights and every other day of the week he sorted his life out.

He figured out how to address the Lenny situation. It was his apartment long before Leonard moved in. The apartment was rightfully his by common law and most squatting rights. He had enough money to pay for the other part of the rent. Granted, it would take away a sum from his rainy day fund, but that would barely make a dent. Apartment situation? Solved.

Next was work. Sheldon had always thought of himself as a hero, as a lone scientist. He is knowledge and innovations would pave way for other great minds. He had always thought that he would be the one to prove string theory. But now, he wasn't so sure.

It had taken generations, and it might take more for string theory to be proven. But he believed in it. Similar to how some people believe in God or a deity, Sheldon believed that string theory would be written in textbooks years later in life. It was science, and to him, it could answer a myriad of questions. He knew that by choosing to stick with string theory he could be just another cog in a giant machine, but if his work could answer questions that would help generations later, it was all worth it.

He had gotten public attention with the stable element. That had nothing to do with string theory, but he had found it anyways. Momentarily, it was a fleeting experience. However, after realizing that his findings were wrong, it turned into a giant elephant in the room. Sheldon knew he was a genius - his work would eventually lead him to a Nobel Prize. He preferred the possibility of it being string theory than to settle for something mundane. Occupation and scientific research conundrum? Solved. For now, at the very least.

The comic book store. Sheldon liked things to be the way that they should be. He breathed order. That was one of the only reasons Sheldon stayed with Stuart's store even after Capitol Comics sold better comic books, had a faster shipping policy, and offered better discounts. It wasn't like he cared too much about Stuart's well being. Just like when he switched to Cheesecake Factory, a new store wouldn't be a bad thing, if he was really up to it. He even had a plan of how to become better friends with Jesse so he could reap better discounts and first call on new comics. Comic book store? Solved.

The one he'd feared the most – his status with Amy. No matter how hard he tried to place Amy into a compartment, she wouldn't fit. There was no clear-cut answer and that drove him insane. How could one female make everything so complicated? Every situation he thought of held no real solutions, just a plethora of problems in its wake. He was left worrying about it until such a time that she decided for him.

She sent the relationship termination email.

Right after reading it, he felt relief was over him. He had an answer. Amy could be solved and compartmentalized.

Days went by and he didn't hear from her again. She didn't inquire about his feelings, his well being, or anything that she normally would have. Implications of break-ups hit Sheldon. He remembered times when Penny and Leonard avoided each other and the months Bernadette didn't talk to Howard at all. Break-ups came with tip-toeing in the halls, icy door slams, and hiding underneath tables. But he and Amy were better than that, right? They were more evolved and more rational. There was no reason they shouldn't be able to be friends.

Sheldon tried to imagine a life without Amy. A life without someone to collaborate on Youtube videos and train formations. A life without her laughing in agreement when he belittled Howard. A life without her humming along to insipid songs. And the thought of the spot next to his on the couch being empty made him more uncomfortable than the idea of her sitting in his own spot.

The situation was unacceptable. But what was there to do?

The best thing he could think of was to start spending time around Amy again. Surely, being the fire to her moth, she would be drawn to him again. The more she saw his sparkling personality, there was no way she would resist not getting back with him. In fact, if that didn't work, he could just have Penny do his hair again. He remembered how she called him 'sex on a stick' the first time. The only problem was: She wouldn't willingly see him. She wasn't answering her phone, and Sheldon didn't want to go knock on her door only to find yet another Fabio there attempting to steal her away.

His trance was broken when the door to his apartment flung open, and Penny walked in, heading towards Leonard's room.

"Really, Penny? It's not that complicated to knock."

"The way you do it, it is." She grumbled. Leonard came out of his room, putting on his shoes as he walked out.

"You ready to go?"

"Where are you guys going?" Sheldon watched as both of them looked at each other hesitantly. Suddenly, he knew. It had something to do with Amy.

"Oh nowhere, really." Penny said while Leonard said something about dinner.

"Oh I am starved." Sheldon eagerly added, hoping that in doing so they would invite him. Either Amy was there, or they were planning on talking about Amy over dinner - regardless he wanted in.

"Sweetie, we have plans." Penny said.

"Plans to do what?"

"Plans to," She looked at Leonard but he just shook his head. Sheldon fixed her with his best probing glance. Predictably, she cracked like an egg. "We are going to have a group dinner at Raj's."

"I don't see why that is exclusive to just you and Leonard. We have spent many evenings having dinner at Raj's with his 98% pixellated television. I see no reason you should be hesitant for me to join you."

"It's a date." Penny interrupted.

This threw Sheldon for a loop. A date. And based on their behavior Amy would be there with a date. His thoughts flew to the man in the lab - a tall, scraggly man who didn't seem to know how to properly cut his hair. Why would Amy be interested in that?

"With Amy's new boyfriend?" He couldn't help from asking.

The question was unlike him, and he could tell from the pitying expression from their faces, they thought so as well.

"No sweetie, Amy isn't dating anyone. Well, not exclusively," He didn't want to read into that. "It's just going to be the gang."

If it was a date, and it was a gang, then that would mean Raj and Amy were on a date. Sheldon automatically flashed back to the karaoke night and relived the familiarity between the two of them in his memory. Was his secondary friend trying to steal his girl? Why else would they have gone to karaoke with just the two of them? And what was it that teenage girl in Amy's lab had said? 'The Indian, the Hick, and the Robot.'

Raj was the Indian.

"But why would Amy date Raj?"

"Well," Leonard looked to Penny and back at Sheldon. "They aren't dating, but they have become close."

"Define close."

"Well, let's just say it's questionable whether Penny is Amy's bestie anymore," Leonard stuttered a bit when Penny glared at him. "What? You said it yourself!"

"Sweetie. Amy and Raj have become very good friends. In fact, this is their joint weekly dinner party."

"But you said it was a date."

"It sure feels like a date." Penny grumbled.

"Most dates, I don't have to pick up Stuart on the way." Leonard argued with her.

"Wait." Sheldon realized something. "Is Stuart bringing someone?"

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"Well then it can't be a date. A date is an even number of girls and boys."

"You once invited Raj on a date with Amy."

But Sheldon continued on as if he hadn't heard Leonard.

"Thus, if it isn't a date, you are allowed to bring yet another member of the group. Arguably a more integrated member of the group seeing as my membership has far outdated that of Bernadette, Amy, and certainly Stuart. I have been part of the group before even yourself, Penny."

"Look buddy, I know you want to go. But I'm not sure Amy wants to see you at _her _party."

"I'm crashing. Get with the plan. Stan."

"What about Laundry Night?" Penny asked.

But Sheldon was past the point of caring about laundry. His plan to win Amy back was on the line.

"Laundry can be done any old day of the week. Let's go before we are late."


	14. The Dinner Insufficiency

**A/N- I want to thank you all for the reviews. Reviews and favorites make me write more often! And as for your comments- is it wrong to say I am glad you all kind of dislike Sheldon right now? This story is going to be a slow build- but I don't think Sheldon quite realizes what he is losing yet. Sheldon has never accepted change so well, and I believe he wouldn't change overnight. So stick with me, and he will get there. And I like that everyone thinks of Amy as strong, but I think she is in the process of getting there as well. As always- I'd love to hear your thoughts. If I get ten reviews I will post the next chapter tonight. *cough* hint *cough***

**As always-my beta is better than yours. **

Leonard knocked, insufficiently, Sheldon thought, and entered first.

"Sorry we're late."

"Rajesh and I haven't finished cooking yet, so you're quite alright." Amy called from the kitchen.

As Sheldon walked through the door, he was able to look at her. She was mixing something in a bowl. Her brown hair was out of character and in a messy bun on top of her head. It bothered him. Seeing a couple of brown strands around her face made him want to go take the stupid ponytail out and run his fingers through it until it looked normal again.

But then again, maybe she was wearing it to keep her cooking sanitary. Amy was smart enough not to risk any hair getting in the food.

"Sheldon! You're back!" Sheldon looked over to Howard and Bernadette who were bounding towards him to give him hugs. But his eyes were still glued to the brunette in the kitchen. She had looked up from her bowl catching his eyes.

"Hello Sheldon."

He couldn't read her. Was she mad that he came? Happy? Was that introduction a peace offering?

"I get it, I get it. You are happy to see me. Does that mean I have to be hugged incessantly?"

"Amy, tell him that hugging is a social convention." Penny groaned. But after she said it, silence swept across Raj's living room.

Everyone's eyes were on the couple, or rather, _ex_-couple. Even Sheldon waited to hear what Amy would say.

"I am not Sheldon's conscious or his mother. He is able to make his own decisions."

"Thank you, Amy." She nodded, but the festering in Sheldon's stomach wouldn't stop.

If Amy wasn't going to push him to be more social, or clarify social cues from here on out, who would? Did that mean she didn't care about him anymore?

"I like your hair, Amy." Leonard said after yet another uncomfortable silence.

Amy smiled at Leonard. "Thanks, Rajesh did it actually."

When everyone looked to Raj, he held out his spoon, pink frosting all over his bottom lip. "What? I have sisters."

"I guess the question between what's going on between you and Amy is now solved. You are her gay best friend." Howard joked.

"As long as it's not me he's being accused of dating." Stuart offered and everyone laughed.

But neither Raj nor Amy seemed to have heard, because she was rubbing off the frosting on his lip for him. Sheldon was brought back to the time when she had done the same for him with the raspberry jam. He remembered her small finger, her green eyes dilating, and the irregular rhythm of his heart.

"It smells fantastic!" Bernadette squeaked.

"Thanks," Raj was now adding more powdered sugar to the bowl. "Amy made lasagna and I made garlic bread sticks. The only thing that needs finishing are the apple pie cupcakes."

Eventually, the group stopped looking between Sheldon and Amy and fell into conversation amongst themselves. Bernadette and Penny started idle chit chat about the wedding. Howard, Stuart, and Leonard started arguing about an episode of Game of Thrones Sheldon had missed while he was away. But instead of getting mad about potential spoilers, or the hens clucking away, he watched the couple in the kitchen.

No matter how much he looked at her, Amy's eyes didn't once stray over to where he was. They stayed fixed on the batter she was finishing, and the conversation she was having with Raj. Sheldon tried to tune his Vulcan hearing into it, but it was hard to hear over the music playing from Raj's phone and the two conversations around him. He could hear random words like 'date', 'lawyer', and 'bucket'" being repeated. But he had no idea what linked them together in the least.

That didn't stop him from trying.

As she started pouring the batter into the cupcake tray, Amy started dancing a bit to the song on Raj's phone. Her head was bobbing up and down and her lips forming words as Raj belted out lyrics beside her. At one point, he even put his spoon near her lips and she sung the next lyrics into it. Once the cupcakes were in the oven, another song had started playing.

And as soon as it started, Raj ran over to his phone to turn it up. And both of them started singing, walking around each other in the kitchen with ease. Maybe that's why they both went to karaoke, because they both just enjoyed singing.

But the song was not something Sheldon's Amy would like. Yet there she was, bouncing in the kitchen, allowing Raj to twirl her again. What was with the twirling? He could twirl her. He had proved that on the night Amy kissed him for the first time.

Penny and Bernadette started humming the song next to him. On the next verse, they started singing along. Soon the whole room was singing a song he had never even heard of before. Even Stuart was tapping his foot along with the beat.

_So you wanna play with magic? You should know what you're falling for. _

_Baby do you dare to do this? Cause I'm coming at ya like a dark horse._

_Are you ready for, ready for the perfect storm, perfect storm? _

_Cause once you're mine, once you're mine there's no going back. _

Sheldon had never liked musicals. Except for Fiddler on the Roof. So the fact that he was momentarily living one, complete with rapping from all parties, was horrifying. What was more horrifying was watching Amy. Calm and rational Amy was gone.

He watched her bop her way around the kitchen without reserve. And while Raj whipped the frosting some more, and Amy sliced the apples in front of her they both at the same time did a small body roll without thinking about it. Like they had synchronized it, or created some dance to the song itself. She looked up seconds after, but not at him. She looked at Raj and they seemed to have some conversation with each other without opening their mouths because moments later, they both nodded and smiled.

And then Amy's gaze flickered to him. But he couldn't read what was in them. The blank and lifeless eyes that stared back at him scared him more than the makeover and the music.

Was his Amy gone forever?

Amy was freaking out. Sheldon was inches away from her in Raj's house and he had eaten her lasagna. She was freaking out. _Fuh-reak-ing out._

What was the protocol? Was she supposed to be mean to him? She knew that if she was Arlene's friend Mac, she would have already thrown a cup of wine in his face. If she was Arlene, she would have made out with Raj to make him jealous. If she was Raj, she would have stood in silence all night. But she was Amy, and Amy was cordial. At least, that's what she had been all night.

But what else could she be? Pairs of eyes had followed her the whole evening, watching her carefully, expecting her to break down crying or yelling, waiting for her to freak out. So she looked to Raj who nodded at her every of couple of minutes, who kept texting her to ask if she wanted him to set his own apartment on fire so she could escape the situation, and who kept engaging her in conversation. He just kept addressing her and only her even as they cleared the dirty dishes from the table. The rest of the group sat on the couch to start a movie.

"I know you went out last night, but we _need_ to watch another episode soon. The show _can't_ end with Bad Wolf Bay. It just can't."

"Raj, I am not sure I am ready to move on from the 'Rose era' so soon."

"We just need to rip the band-aid off and try to like Martha. In our opinion, she isn't as good as Rose, but maybe we will end up liking her. We will never know unless we take the time to try."

"Are you two talking in code names?" Bernadette asked from the couch and everyone turned to them.

"No. We are talking about Doctor Who. We just watched Doomsday and my heart will _never_ heal."

"But you'd already seen it." Leonard said to Raj, and Amy watched as he blinked twice.

"Yes, but he had never seen it with me. Studies show that we respond to the emotions of the people around us. It just so happens that I found it heartbreaking."

"Heartbreaking my ass. It was devastating. I haven't cried so hard since Big broke up with Carrie."

"But Amy doesn't like Doctor Who." Sheldon looked at Amy. His eyes were watching her with calculating attention to detail.

"Actually, I'm starting to see the charm in it."

"Charm?" He asked, his voice going high and haughty. "Last time we watched it, you kept complaining that the Daleks looked like trashcans attached to plungers."

"And they still do."

"And so I maintain Amy doesn't like Doctor Who. She's merely taking a social cue from Raj. In fact, based on the infallible friendship algorithm, I believe she's on the counter loop of least questionable activities."

"Are you inferring Amy is pretending to like Doctor Who to be friends with me?"

"I'm not inferring it, I'm saying it."

Amy could feel her temperature rising. _So much for being civil. _She opened her mouth to retort when Raj placed his hand on her arm. She looked down at his caramel hand and marvelled that for it was second nature to calm her, to comfort her because he was her friend, no questions asked. When she looked up, she could see Sheldon staring down at Raj's hand as well. His eyes got a little wider, and if she didn't know any better she could have sworn she saw a flash of disappointment cross his features.

"Look dude, the relationship between her and I-"

Amy cut Raj off before he could continue. "I like Doctor Who now. Actually, I love it when the episodes I am watching are written by Russel T Davis as opposed to Steven Moffat."

Howard and Leonard both gasped, and Amy was reminded of a certain cafeteria show down between her and Sheldon. He just sputtered.

"How can you say that? Moffat is _the_ best writer of Doctor Who, hands down."

"I beg to disagree. I think his characters are poorly developed," He shook his head and gave her his look of pure derision. "And his storyline has more holes than Swiss cheese." At this, he guffawed.

"First of all, the characters are much more developed under Moffat. It's not just a show about a love-sick girl chasing the Doctor around. Spare me that soap opera, would you?."

A love sick girl chasing the Doctor around? Nope, Amy had no experience with what that must be like.

"It wasn't with Amy Pond and River Song? As far as I know unrequited love isn't as dramatic as a love triangle with incestual overtones. Also, you have told me on multiple occasions that David Tennant was the best doctor. As far as I know, he was being written by RTD, thus, proving my point."

She heard the group make a noise under their breaths, which signified the fight was on. He stepped forward, looking at the ground, his hands behind his back. His battle stance.

"The best episodes in RTD's era were the Girl in the Fireplace, and Blink. Which, may I remind you, were both written by Moffat." She tried not to get turned on by the deep growl in his voice, and instead tried to channel it to win her argument.

"Blink played upon the idea of different universes that RTD had already done in Bad Wolf Bay. Also, the episode had very little to do with the Doctor himself. He had eight lines or so in the script, so it stands to reason it isn't a reflection of the Doctor as much as it is a random story told in the same universe. Second, it's well established that the Girl in the Fireplace doesn't make sense after the episode it followed. It has also gotten negative reviews stating that all of the characters, particularly Rose, were written extremely out of character."

"It is the work of true geniuses to expand upon the works of their predecessors. Do you think Isaac Newton would have been able to derive Kepler's Laws if it wasn't for Galileo?"

"Doctor Cooper you seem to have gotten a _bit_ off topic. I believe we were arguing about Doctor Who. But maybe you ran out of arguments and realized I _am_, in fact, correct." She watched his eyes fall into slits and he started stalking forward slowly, she could feel his body heat radiating off of her.

"No, _Doctor Fowler_, I was using an outside point to prove my point. Maybe you just didn't understand my intention."

"I understood your intention, alright. I still don't think it makes your point," Amy countered, rising on her toes to try and mirror his height. As close as she was to him she could see that his body was shaking slightly. She could have backed down, but it was his turn to squirm. "Perhaps you would be better off addressing a subject a little easier for you," He scoffed. "The plot holes."

"I'm not done with my first point."

"So you can't address the plot holes?" Amy smirked, loving the fact that his body was an inch away from hers.

"There are no plot points to address."

"So you would say the fact that he continually creates universes and situations for characters and then hits a reboot button every time things get out of hand is a plot consistency?" She could see his dilated pupils. "He is constantly rewriting the rules of the universe with little explanation as to feasibility-" He cut her off with a finger to her lips. She couldn't remember a time when he had ever touched her lips with his finger, and she had the strangest urge to suck on it just to see what he would do.

"Sheldon, she has a point," Leonard was saying from the couch, but it sounded far away. She instead noticed that Sheldon's breathing rate had increased, most likely from the conflict itself. "I mean if you look at the finale and how he decided to just bring back-"

"Spoilers!" Raj yelled. But Sheldon didn't tear his eyes away from her. His eyes kept kept searching her face as if it held the mysteries of string theory within it.

"But Raj you have already seen them all." Howard was saying. There was a pause, which she could tell Sheldon was using to categorize everything that had happened in their conversation, build an argument and strike. And sure enough, his face lit up and then curled into a scheming smile. Amy knew she should be scared, but instead her body was tingling with a burning that was slowly turning into a fire.

"But Amy hasn't," Raj said. Sheldon smirked, in whatever knowledge he was about to take her down with. "Is she even listening?"

"Maybe arguing is some type of foreplay for Sheldon." Howard said with a cringe.

It was at this moment that Sheldon seemed to realize how close he was to Amy. He took into account their close bodies, his digit on her lips, their faces mere inches away and jumped back, slightly dazed. He looked at the ground, as if to reorient his self and the moment was broken. She wanted desperately to hit Howard. Seconds went by, and nobody said anything.

"Well, if Amy is allowed to change her mind on Doctor Who, I can change my mind as well." Sheldon was speaking to the entire room but for some reason Amy felt that a majority of the room was looking at her instead. She could only hold her breath in anticipation to see where this was leading.

"Eleven is my favorite doctor."

Amy was overwhelmed with a feeling of disappointment. Whatever shocking change of mind she had been hoping, it hadn't been that.

"Unlike Ten, who is constantly being led by his emotions, and attempting an utterly pointless relationship with Rose - Eleven is a man of science." Sheldon stated.

The words slapped Amy in the chest, and stole her breath. Moments went past. Sheldon smiled like he won the argument. But suddenly Amy didn't care about winning anymore. She just wanted to remove herself from the situation.

"Yes, Eleven was living the dream." Amy didn't mean for her voice to come out so quiet. "Always being the third wheel with a married couple. You know what would make an even better show? A doctor that has no interactions with humans at all."

Sheldon smirked, and Amy knew he thought that meant he had won. And in the bigger picture he had, for he was back in the game, with every piece on his chess board exactly where he wanted it. She had been a pawn, step by step inching in enemy territory to become a queen. Every step - hand holding, kissing, cuddling - led her to believe that she was inching towards victory. The finish line was in sight. But he had methodically taken her out. He got everything he wanted; the friends, the admirer, and now this argument. And she had enough of losing.

"I am going to go home." Amy watched the faces around her light up in panic.

They wanted to solve her and Sheldon, she knew that. But Sheldon didn't want to. And so it was time to accept the checkmate she had been placed in. She needed to accept loss so she could move on to something she had the opportunity to win. She refused to look at Sheldon's smug face, or listen to Penny's half-hearted attempt to call her back inside.

Amy instead fled. She fled to the one place no one would find her - outside Arlene's doorstep, a bottle of cheap grocery store wine already half gone. She was rambling about chess, and uneaten lasagna when the blonde girl opened the door.


	15. The Relationship Combustion

**We need to talk, come over.**

It was a simple text. If Arlene's Cosmo magazines were correct it meant that the couple in question was about to break up. But she wasn't in a relationship where that sentence was needed anymore. Nope, the breakup had already happened. And the text in question was from Sheldon, who would have no idea what romantic implications it held. But the statement was true. They _did_ need to talk.

The problem was that Sheldon talked, more than any other person she knew, but he had an uncanny ability to never really say anything at the same time. For all she knew, she could show up and he would give her a lengthy lecture on the difference between hand washing dishes and putting them in the dish washer.

And also there was the problem that the day in general wasn't a good one. The date on the calendar came with emotional baggage Amy was trying to avoid. But Arlene had cancelled on their dinner trip. Apparently the blonde had really hit it off with some guy by the produce section at her local grocery store. The idea of sitting alone on her couch, on THE specific day, with nothing to do was a dark hole Amy didn't want to see the bottom of. Talking to Sheldon wasn't her first choice, but it was what she was left with. So there she was, in his apartment, her yellow mug filled with peppermint tea, trying not to notice Sheldon simply watching her.

_It's a chore that has to be done. We have to decide what to do about our mutual friends and how to proceed as exes. Today is as good as any to get chores done. it's just a chore. _And at that moment Amy made the decision to treat their discussion as he had their relationship- emotionless and detached.

She took another sip of her watered down tea, unsure of what to do. She didn't want to have another silent conversation like they did at the beginning of their friendship. But she also didn't want to go back to the days where she had to pull every thought out of him like a bad tooth.

"I'm sorry."

The apology shocked her. He hadn't prefaced it with a gift, or any failed attempts to get it out.

"I'm sorry?" She repeated.

"No, _I_ am sorry." His eyebrows furrowed. "I am sorry for crashing your work place, and then your dinner two nights ago."

"That's it?"

"And I am sorry for leaving you without taking the proper measures to ensure the relationship agreement was being met."

She nodded, disappointed. She shouldn't want more, but she did. _Isn't that always the way? _"Okay."

"I don't understand why we can't just go back to being in a relationship." He was studying his tea cup in an attempt to avoid her eyes. She could hear the earnestness in his voice. He really didn't understand. He didn't get it. And chances are he would never get it. Amy knew the time had come to lay it all out on the proverbial table.

"Sheldon, I have needs."

"Oh boy, it _always_ comes back to coitus for you, doesn't it?"

"No." Offended, she answered honestly. "It comes down to affection." He looked at her in confusion.

"I'm a woman, Sheldon. Sometimes, I need to hear that I am aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes, I also need someone who can actually touch me."

At that moment Sheldon put his hand on her leg.

"You _are_ pretty."

He fixed her with his koala gaze and she wanted nothing more to throw her hands up in the air and scream. But the sad part was that she understood. She had said she had a problem with something, he was merely proving to her that he could in fact do it. _Leave it to him to try to find a loophole in my request for affection._

"That's _not_ what I meant."

"I don't understand, then." Sheldon shook his head.

"I want someone to do it _without_ having to be told."

"You didn't tell me to say it," He corrected her. "I decided to."

"Okay, well then I want someone who says it because they feel it. Sheldon I want someone who desires me, my company, and has the urge to kiss me spontaneously. I want to be around someone who wants to do what I want to, even if he doesn't like them. Someone who will dance with me when we are at social events. Someone who, when he holds me close to him, isn't tensing up and counting down seconds until it is over. When you left you got one thing right – I _do _want sex, marriage, and eventually, children. I want the whole package, and you don't."

Sheldon groaned, and got off the couch. When Amy looked at him quizzically he took a deep breath.

"All my life Leonard, Howard, Penny, Missy, my Mother, my colleagues, and sometimes even my teachers have made jokes that I am from another planet. I have taken it with pride, knowing that I am, in fact, different. But other times it was frustrating because it did feel like I spoke a language no one else could understand. A language no one else was willing to decipher,"

She was unsure what he was talking about. He sat back down on the couch, as if proximity would help her further understand his point.

"Until I met you. Not only did you understand, speak, and relate, but you also translated it for others to apprehend. But now, if I'm being totally honest, I feel like you went and learned another language. And it's all you talk in, but I really don't understand it."

She sighed. He wanted the _old_ her back. The one he understood. On some days, she wished she could just go back to being that person as well. But she couldn't. Neither of them could have what they wanted.

"But Sheldon, if that is the case, why would you still want to be in a relationship with me?"

"Because you are my girlfriend." It was stated as a matter of fact.

To him, she then realized, it was a simple fact. If it had been months before, she would have read into it. She would have convinced herself that this proved he cared for her in some way. But as it was, she saw only the implications of his desire for nothing to change. She was his girlfriend, and he had gotten used to that. As much as she wanted it to be about her as a person, it was all about the idea of normalcy to him, a routine in his system.

"Not anymore." She said softly, and he nodded. Both sat quietly pondering that fact.

"I guess we have to figure out what do now," She offered. Sheldon just nodded, lost in his own thoughts. "If you want me to stop hanging out with Leonard, Howard-"

"No." He stopped her. "They are your friends as well. Amy, I don't want you to leave."

She looked at him strange. "Leave? I'm not leaving."

"You are part of our social group. That was my own doing, and like an exothermic combustion reaction, I can't undo it now. No, you will still be an integral part. I won't hear of anything less."

She nodded. "Thank you, Sheldon."

But he put a hand out and shook his head. "There's no need. Just so we are clear, we are agreeing to go back to being boy-slash-friend-slash-girl-slash-friend."

Amy wanted to argue with that. She knew she couldn't be Sheldon's friend. Not after all the hurt had been done. But if she told him that it would turn into a deep discussion. And she didn't feel like explaining the pain, heartache, and hurt to a robot. She didn't see the point in trying anymore to make him understand her. So she would mollify him, as one did a small child. _Just agree to being friends but avoid him when needs be. _

"But I won't sign a contract." She clarified.

"Not necessary. I don't have friendship contracts with Howard, Raj, Bernadette, and Penny, as useful as they may be at times."

"So, does this mean we're friends?" She tried to get a gage of what expectations he had for her, but he just looked at the ground.

"Yes."

"Okay." She studied him, and felt her heart break a little. _And that is the end of the Sheldon chapter. _

It was officially acknowledged and understood on both sides. The thing she had devoted the past five years to was officially caput. She was no longer someones girlfriend. And with that thought her resolve to be as emotionless as possible was waning.

Amy felt like someone was sitting on her windpipe. She felt her stomach churning and creating words she wanted to say. Those words festered, crawling upwards one at a time, until different combinations danced right on her clavicle ready to come through her throat. All the different combinations between yelling at him, begging him not to let her go, confessing it was all a mistake just aching to jump out of her. Her arms felt weird at her sides, itching to just reach out to him, to just crawl into his arms.

"Should we make rules or guidelines of any sort?" He asked, shifting in his seat as if he could hear her mutinous thoughts.

This was it. the chapter on their relationship was closing, and she was letting it happen. She felt panicky; the kind felt when a car almost swerves into the wrong lane, or when you walk down a flight of stairs and realize you missed a step.

"I think we should just take this one day at a time."

He nodded, and she just wished against all hope that he would say something. To her utmost dismay, he didn't. She got up to leave and he stood up as well and walked her to the door, doing everything in his might to avoid looking at her.

"Goodbye, Sheldon." She said and waited a second longer than she should have, hoping that second would change everything, that the second would transport her to a time where she was happy with what she had had.

"Have a good night, Amy." He responded and Amy knew she was about to start crying. Saying it was over was different than the actuality of facing it. So Amy shut the door behind her.

*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*

After she left, Sheldon kept replaying words in his head. During their conversation he had decided one thing: She was an integral part, not only of the group, but of him.

Sheldon Cooper was a man of science. The two were inseparable. It was impossible to have one without the other. Yet the idea of doing such with another person was something that had never occurred to him. Not until Amy.

Now, he knew it was true- Sheldon Cooper didn't want to be Sheldon Cooper without Amy Farrah Fowler. Like ivy, she had wrapped herself around him, interweaving herself in every aspect of his life. She made him smarter – intellectually, in mere street smarts, and social conventions. She had increased his friendships with her distinct perspective and understanding. She was a part of his life. A part he wasn't willing to sacrifice.

But she was also right. Where she had been ivy for him, he was merely the tree she wrapped around. He hadn't helped her intellectually. In fact he had never once tried to help her on her own academic pursuits. He didn't take any time to get to know the people in her life, instead, he went to great lengths to make sure he didn't have to. She never came to him for advice socially, knowing he had little to offer her, so he couldn't help her in that area. He had no idea what activities she liked to participate in besides the things he liked to do already. He had never budged, just let her do all the effort.

Amy deserved better. He had once insisted she deserved the best when Stuart was after her. And he was certain of it. And Sheldon Cooper was, and always would be the best. And if he hadn't been, well he would be now. _It's that simple _he thought.

She deserved someone who would do everything with her that she wanted. And he was determined to use their new friendship status to remind her of why they would be perfect for each other. They had already been boy-slash-friend-slash-girl-slash- friend before, and it evolved into something more. Who was to say it couldn't again? She also told him there were no limits or rules to their new friendship. This time, he had to budge. He had to move.

He had no idea what happened in typical relationships, but he did know people who did. Moreover, he had a group of people that knew Amy, and might know how best to make it right. He was a man of action, and his best action would be to collect those people and make them start talking. Yes, a committee designed to help him get his girl. What could possibly go wrong?

**A/N-So Sheldon thinks he knows what he wants... but does he really? Dun dun dun**

**AHH YOU GUYS ARE MY HEREOS! I far surpassed ten. And I owe it all to you. Sorry this was hours later but due to moving I posted it as soon as I got back to my computer. Tomorrow I spend most of my day on planes without a computer. But I am going to write, write, write- like a busy bee. I am going to personally thank each and every one of you who reviewed, so look for that as well. **


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